


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.Z-<~? Copyright No.. 

Shelf . x 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE GOLDEN CROCODILE 



/ 



THE 


GOLDEN CROCODILE 



F. MORTIMER TRIMMER 


$ 



BOSTON 

ROBERTS BROTHERS 
1897 


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.T-J^G. Cr 


Copyright , -Z£P7, 

By Roberts Brothers. 


^Eiubersttg ^ress: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. A Confidential Communication 7 

II. Into the Whirl 25 

III. At the Mormon Bishop’s Ranch 49 

IV. Still there 66 

V. A Quiet Little Girl aroused 96 

VI. A Difference of Opinion 119 

VII. A Close Shave 140 

VIII. Lander & Co 162 

IX. A Sly Old Woman 191 

X. Love 205 

XI. Travel and Travail 218 

XII. Down on his Uppers 241 

XIII. A Perilous Expedition 260 

XIV. Conjuring 269 

XV. A Sweet Girl’s Bright Thought .... 286 

XVI. A Strange Visitor . 299 

XVII. Just in Time 314 



The Golden Crocodile 


CHAPTER I. 

A CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION. 
MINER’S cabin, built of rude pine logs 



drawn from the primeval forest of a neigh- 
boring gulch, nestles in a sheltered nook of Grizzly 
Hollow, near the head of Roaring Fork Canyon, up 
amongst the summits of the great mountains over in 
the west, beyond the prairies. 

The evening shadows have settled deep upon the 
little mining-camp, whose buildings are congre- 
gated on the flat down there, near the bottom of the 
Hollow, where rush the tumbling waters of Roaring 
Fork Creek, here the joint volume of a dozen smaller 
streams meeting at the upper end of the Hollow, 
after pouring down the steep mountain-sides from 
the melting snows of the peaks above. 

While darkness creeps rapidly over the valley 
below, the mountain-tops, towering like sentinels 
into the blue sky, thousands of feet above the little 
hamlet, are still basking in the glorious crimson 
rays of a typical sunset of this high, clear atmos- 
phere; and the remnant of winter’s snows, which, 
even at this late summer-time, still lingers on the 


8 


The Golden Crocodile. 


northern slopes of the higher levels, is now more 
plainly in view than even in full daylight. 

A sound as of the breeze sighing through the 
pine-trees alone breaks the pleasing stillness of 
Nature; but, in truth, the air is a perfect calm. 

The sound we hear — a dreamy, murmuring sound 
— is the voice of falling waters. It comes to us 
from a score of hidden streamlets gurgling down the 
steep, rocky mountain-sides, beneath the shadows 
of the dense pine-woods from their sources far up 
the peaks, where, in deep gulches, and by shady 
northern slopes, there still lie remnants of mighty 
snowdrifts piled by the fierce whirling blasts of 
winter, now slowly defying the midsummer sun’s 
relentless rays. Those burning rays which there, 
on the very edge of the snowbank, have nourished 
into life the beauties of Nature’s mountain flower- 
garden ; the lovely columbine with pale lavender 
tint, the brilliant scarlet Indian Head, the sweet 
primrose, and last, but not least, nestling closest 
to the snow, the modest violet. 

Amidst the tangled depths of the woods, fallen 
giants of the forest, stretching their mighty lengths 
athwart the downward-rushing waters, damming them 
back, create the gentle falls whose music reaches us. 
The voice of these thousand tiny cataracts is now 
but a whisper of the dying season; of well-nigh 
exhausted Nature. With the awakening vigor of 
spring, the loosening of the icy bands of winter, 
the dancing cataracts made merry company with the 


A Confidential Communication. 


9 


grand music of their rushing, foaming volume ; but 
with the ripening of Nature, at this later season, 
they have still kept faithful tune, and slowly hushed 
to softer airs. 

Whoever read the signs sculptured by the hand of 
Nature on the mountains round, knew that once this 
Hollow was the crater of a vast volcano; that the 
burning fires deep down within the earth there had 
found an outlet, and when the fires died low, and 
lower still, they left this sunken hollow, their de- 
serted workshop, — not quite deserted, though ; for 
even now there still gushed forth, with clouds of 
steam as well, from a deep, dark cavern in the 
mountain-side near by, a mighty, bubbling, boiling 
spring; a remnant of the earth’s past youthful vigor. 

And reading still from other signs one learned 
of other happenings in the eons past. That when 
the fires of the earth in her young life had thus 
smouldered low, the snows from the great moun- 
tains around had formed in the Hollow a beautiful 
lake. That there came a time when the waters of 
the lake, rising slowly, slowly, had trickled over the 
edge of the crater, and started for the far-off ocean ; 
as though bidden by some master-mind to do their 
share of work, instead of idly staying in the Beau- 
tiful Lake. 

So the trickling of the rivulet, through millions 
of years, had carved out the dark canyon with its 
steep walls, and the waters of the lake had all gone 
through it to the ocean, leaving as dry land the bed 


IO 


The Golden Crocodile . 


of the Lake for the miner’s cabin, whenever he 
should penetrate through the canyon from the plains 
far down below, to search for the glittering prize, 
forced here to the sunlight through the cracks and 
fissures of the quaking earth, from dark mysterious 
chaldrons miles beneath, in days when yet the uni- 
verse was young. 

This was the scene. 


“ Good-evening, Doctor, you’re just in time. I 
was going to close up in another two minutes. 
You ’ve come after letters, I suppose. There are 
some here for you, and some papers, too. They ’re 
in the back office. If you ’ll wait one minute, while 
I fasten the front door, I ’ll go with you and get 
them; we can go out the other way.” 

The speaker is Mr. George Davis, the leading 
storekeeper of Grizzly Hollow. Mr. Davis, or 
George, as he is familiarly known in the place, is 
seated in the front part of his store, enjoying a 
quiet cigar by himself after the work of the day, 
every one else having already gone, and, as he says, 
about to go himself also. 

Scattered about on shelves and on the floor, in 
what to the eye of a stranger appears to be a state 
of almost hopeless confusion, is the usual stock-in- 
trade of a mining-camp general store; the articles 
ranging from hairpins to blasting powder. 

The person he is addressing as Doctor is Harry 
Singleton, a young Englishman of perhaps two-and- 


A Confidential Communication . 1 1 

twenty, but certainly not older, dressed in a well- 
fitting, though far from new, suit of rough tweed. 
A shady, wide-brimmed felt hat covers a head of 
curly brown hair, and his trousers, below the knees, 
are tucked away into a pair of long, heavy, miner’s 
boots. 

The expression of youthful earnestness on the 
young Englishman’s face, taken together with the 
light-gray eyes and clear complexion, contrast very 
strongly with the stained and weather-beaten, though 
somewhat philosophic countenance of the other man. 
The professional title is one of those mining-camp 
diplomas which such communities are fond of con- 
ferring, sometimes only at random, and then again, 
for some reason considered to be good and sufficient. 
In Harry Singleton’s case, the fact of his having 
been a medical student in a London hospital, though 
temporarily compelled to abandon his work and seek 
a dry climate for a few years, which matter he had 
casually mentioned in the camp, had promptly con- 
ferred the full honors of his still uncompleted course 
upon him. 

“You might as well sit down and rest for a few 
minutes,” the storekeeper said, again addressing 
him, after handing over the letters. “I wasn’t 
going anywhere myself. I was coming back here 
to do some writing after closing up. Here’s some 
cigars; you smoke, don’t you? That’s a pretty 
good easy-chair, Doctor,” he went on. “Take that 
and smoke here awhile. It ’s comfortable in here.” 


12 


The Golden Crocodile . 


They smoked on for some minutes in silence, 
and then the storekeeper started the conversation 
again. 

“ Say, Doctor, I heard you was going to do some 
work mining soon; that you and old Joe Shelby was 
taking up the old Silver Ledge claim, what ’s been 
abandoned so long. How is it? Is that so? ” 

The visitor laughed. “ We ’ve re-located the old 
claim, if you like to call that mining. ” 

“ Say, but you ’re going to do some work there, 
ain’t you? I ’m asking for several reasons, and one 
of them is because I want to sell you some powder 
and other stuff for the men. You ’ll want some 
tools, too, unless the men has them themselves.” 

“ Yes, that ’s one of the things I came down about. 
I ’ve got a list of things in my pocket somewhere. 
Here it is. Shelby made it out.” 

“ Joe Shelby ’s a good man for a partner, Doctor, 
— a good, square man. I ’ve known Joe a long time. 
Him and me was together on some of them roaring 
camps years ago. I suppose now Joe ’s going to put 
up his share of expenses, ain’t he? Joe’s got money, 
I know; but he ’s pretty close about it. He ’s made 
more money at that lumber cutting than he did in 
mining, though.” 

Presently a pause came again in the conversation, 
and it seemed as if the exchange of ideas had been 
exhausted, until the storekeeper’s visitor suddenly 
re-opened the subject. 

“By the way, Davis, you were here in the early 


A Confidential Communication . i 3 

days, weren’t you, when the Silver Ledge was caus- 
ing so much excitement ? ” 

“ You bet I was,” he replied with emphasis, and, 
as if welcoming an opportunity to recount some of 
his old experiences to an interested listener, quickly 
went on. 

“Them was times to live in, too; we had a live 
little camp here then. Of course it warn’t one of 
them roaring camps like the big ones further west, 
but a pretty good little town,” and the last words 
were said in a tone which was meant to convey much 
more meaning than the words themselves expressed. 

“Were you mining at all then? ” 

“Yes, and no. That is, I thought I was, but the 
mine never turned out to be no more than just a hole 
in the ground; never found no ore.” His compan- 
ion laughed, and the storekeeper continued, “ I was 
running store, too, then, just as I am now, but not 
in this building. I was way over on the other side 
of the street, next to where Donovan’s saloon is 
now. After the big fire burned out that side, I 
moved here. There was barrels of money in my 
business then; we got way-up prices for everything. 
But it didn’t do me and my partner much good, for 
we sunk all we made in the mining I was telling 
of.” 

“Were you working anywhere about here? ” asked 
his listener. 

“Why, yes, you know where them old workings 
is in Ruby Gulch, as you turn the corner from the 


H 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Ida Elmore? Well, right there. We just made 
sure we had the extension of the main lode of the 
big Spread Eagle Mine, and was going to strike it 
every day for a year, so we thought; and nothing 
made us change our opinions ’cept our money all 
giving out. And you was asking about the Silver 
Ledge. Them was just the best days for the Silver 
Ledge. They was getting the silver out in whole 
chunks. One time the manager got so excited when 
they struck a terrible rich pocket, that they say he 
telegraphed to parties in London and New York he 
know’d, that he guessed he ’d struck the Bank of 
England.” 

The visitor laughed. 

“Well, I believe that's a true story, though,” the 
storekeeper added, as if he thought his visitor sus- 
pected him of a little exaggeration; “any way the 
stock boomed away up all of a sudden; just went 
out of sight. But,” and here he assumed a some- 
what confidential air, “that there was just about 
the last pocket as ever they found in the old Silver 
Ledge. I heard all about the boom in that stock 
from a man what came out here from New York, 
and stayed a couple of weeks. He bought in at top 
prices, and then come to see why she ’d petered out 
so sudden. I guess, though, he did n’t know much 
more when he left than when he came.” 

“But they didn’t stop working at that time; I 
mean, after the rich pockets came to an end, did 
they?” 


A Confidential Communication. 15 

“O Lord, no! Why, them as knows says the 
owners spent half as much money looking for more 
of them rich spots as was ever took from the mine 
before she played out. 

“ Oh, you can’t ever tell how much they was sup- 
posed to have took out,” explained the storekeeper, 
presently, in answer to further questioning. “ May- 
be a million and a half, or p’raps two millions. 
You see the Company had other claims besides the 
Silver Ledge, and the returns was all made together. 

“Mining’s a queer business, ain’t it?” observed 
Mr. Davis, with a meditative air, and not as if ask- 
ing a question, after there had been again a little 
pause in the conversation. “P’raps, now, after 
spending all that money looking for more of them 
rich spots, them workings might have stopped just 
the length of a pick-handle from what they was 
after.” And Davis looked at his companion as if 
this last observation was intended as a question, 
but, getting no answer, went on to put the matter 
plainer. “ P’raps that ’s what you and Joe Shelby ’s 
been figuring out, Doctor, is it? Joe’s a pretty 
good miner, and I guess you know something about 
it, don’t you? ” 

“I’ve not had any practical experience; but I 
learned a little at the Mining School in California, 
when first I came out from England. I was there 
for about a year. I ’ve heard, though,” he added, 
laughing, “you don’t think much of what one picks 
up that way. ” 


The Golden Crocodile . 


16 

“ Oh, I did n’t know before as you ’d learned assay- 
ing and that. Then did you and Joe find anything 
in the old workings what would make you think 
something’s left there still?” 

“Oh, no, nothing at all,” he answered; “but 
we ’ve got the plans, showing the old workings and 
where the rich ore came out, and as I ’m all theory, 
I explained some ideas I had to Shelby, and he 
said he ’d risk a little along with me in some places 
which the old workings had passed by. The old 
owners never got any title to the ground, so we ’ve 
taken it up again. And, ” — he concluded ; speaking 
with an air of youthful enthusiasm, which the quick 
glance of the storekeeper promptly noted, — “ it 
makes me feel much more interested in the camp to 
be actually doing something, like everybody else.” 

“I’m very glad to hear this, Doctor. And while 
we ’re talking about it, just let me give you a word 
of advice, though, maybe, you don’t need it, having 
Joe Shelby for a partner. An old partner of mine 
used always to say, there was only one way to hold 
a mine what had anything in it, and that was to 
marry the daughter of the biggest lawyer in the next 
town, and buy out a gun-store at the same time. 
But I guess he was talking about some tough place 
he was in, where they had fights and disputes all the 
time. ’T ain’t that way here, not very much, any- 
way; still, there always will be disputes in the busi- 
ness, and even just now there ’s things coming up 
here. Now you ’re going into mining yourself,” — 


A Confidential Communication . 17 

and here Mr. Davis lowered his voice, as if this 
was something confidential he was about to say, — 
“you ’ll learn some things you ’d never know of when 
you was only just an outsider in the camp. Right 
now,” and he dropped his voice still lower, “there ’s 
a bit of trouble coming on here, and I think I ought 
to tell you.” 

“Trouble? What about?” asked the visitor, 
quickly, and in a tone indicating great surprise, at 
the same time lowering his voice as the other had 
done. 

The storekeeper drew his chair very close. 

“ It ’s this way,” — the words were but little above 
a whisper now, — “there’s always been some dis- 
putes up there to Ruby Gulch, about the lines for 
the claims. The miners agreed not to go fighting 
about it in court, but to settle it among theirselves. 
Some of the boys — poor men, too — as has a claim 
in there, and been working for over a year without 
getting pay, last month got on to rich ground, and 
it looks as if they ’d get something back at last for 
their work. Then up comes a sneak of a fellow 
what ’s been run out of camps before, and they find 
him a-nosing round. He ’s been up there about 
two weeks, they say, — I don’t know him myself, 
but only what I ’m told. Seems he ’s just trying a 
game to rob those poor boys.” 

Harry Singleton had followed the storekeeper 
with very close interest, and by the time the end 
had come, his feelings, it seemed, were roused to a 


i8 


The Golden Crocodile . 


pitch of indignation, for he broke out with what 
really seemed to be unnecessary vigor. 

“ What a blanked shame ! ” he exclaimed, the 
enthusiasm of youth, and a feeling of sympathy 
created by his own recent advent into an actual 
mining adventure, probably combining to stimulate 
his feelings. 

“ Hush ! don’t talk too loud, Doctor!” protested 
the storekeeper, with a cautioning gesture; for the 
visitor’s roused feelings had caused him to forget 
the previous injunctions. “ Walls is thin in these 
buildings, and there’s always some sneaks in every 
camp; men as perhaps you ’d never think of.” 

“ But what can they do about it ? ” asked the 
young Englishman, in a whisper, as he adopted the 
caution. 

Mr. Davis did not answer for a few moments. 
Then he rose from his seat, went to an iron safe 
standing in one corner of the office they were sit- 
ting in, and, turning the combination for a few 
seconds, opened the heavy door, and, taking from 
an inner drawer a bundle of papers, selected one. 
“This,” he said, returning to his seat, laying the 
paper unopened, but pointing to it on the table, 
speaking slowly and deliberately, “is the secret 
rules of this camp, as has been made to preserve 
order and square dealing.” 

His companion looked at the paper as if to ask if 
he might see the inside. 

Davis appeared to read his thoughts. “No, I 


A Confidential Communication. 


1 9 


can’t show the inside to you; only members of the 
order knows them. You ’ll be qualified to join after 
being the owner of a claim for three months, and 
you ’ll have to join. We don’t let every one in, but 
only them as the rest feels can be trusted.” 

“ Could n’t I join now without waiting for three 
months ? ” 

“ Never could be done,” the storekeeper replied 
with a shake of the head. “ Must go by the rules ; 
and though I ’m the president, I can’t do nothing 
without consulting the committee. But I ’ll tell 
you what I can do, maybe,” — and here he dropped 
his voice almost out of hearing, — “I can invite you 
to the meeting to be held to-morrow evening.” 

“What meeting? ” he asked eagerly. 

“The meeting about this Ruby Gulch trouble; 
the boys is so fired up they want something done 
right away, and I expect they ’re right. Delays is 
dangerous. This ain’t a meeting of the regular 
society,” Mr. Davis went on to explain, “but just 
gotten up in a hurry by the Ruby Gulch parties. I 
don’t know who ’ll be there except Ed Watson; but 
I just promised to go, because Ed wanted me. He 
knows the men up there; I ain’t well acquainted 
with them.” 

“Where is it to be? ” 

“Under Mike Donovan’s saloon. If you say 
you’ll come, why, I ’ll give you the pass-words.” 

“Of course I’d like to come,” he answered, now 
completely in earnest. 


20 


The Golden Crocodile. 


“ Maybe you won’t know any of the boys there; 
but there ’ s some of ’ em knows who you are. There ’ 11 
only be about fifteen. We like to keep these things 
quiet, and then, whatever happens, why, there ’s 
fewer to say they didn’t know nothing about it.” 
And here Mr. Davis nodded his head significantly. 
“That’s all there is to say about it now. But,” — 
speaking now in very low tones indeed, — “I didn’t 
tell you how to get in, though. You just go into 
the yard from the gate at the rear end of the lot ; 
walk up to the building, and to the left of the back 
door you ’ll see steps leading downstairs. There 
ain’t no door at the top of the stairs, only a little 
gate, but that ’ll be open. Follow down the steps 
until you meet a man what asks for the pass-word. 
It ’ll be quite dark on the stairs, but they ’re easy 
to get down. This is the pass-words.” The store- 
keeper whispered them in his ear. 

They were simple enough; just these: Nineteen, 
twenty-nine. He repeated them to himself several 
times to fix them in his memory. 

“There’s another thing; the time’s ten sharp; 
don’t be late. And one thing more I want to tell 
you particular about, — I don’t want you to say noth- 
ing to Joe Shelby about this. He ’s a kind of a 
crank in some things, and though the boys likes him 
first-rate, they ’d rather not have him know what we 
was doing. You can tell him you ’re down-town 
having a game of pool. You do play once in a 
while, don’t you?” 


A Confidential Communication . 


21 


“Oh, I needn’t say anything to him about it; 
there’s no reason why I should tell him.” And 
Harry Singleton spoke with a touch of youthful feel- 
ing, a tinge of resentment, perhaps, at the sugges- 
tion which Mr. Davis’s words seemed to convey, that 
he, Harry Singleton, should think necessary to 
make a confidant of his old partner in mere personal 
matters. 

“Well, that’s all right, then. And now it’s 
getting pretty late, so p’raps you ’ll want to be 
going. You haven’t forgotten them pass-words, 
have you ? ” 

He showed that he had not, and passing out 
through the back-door, the two were soon in the 
street. 

“I guess you take the .opposite way to me, don’t 
you ? ” said Davis. 

“Yes, I go across the bridge.” 

“Well, then, good-night.” 

“Good-night,” he replied, and they parted. 

The hour was late, that is, late for being out 
in the street; the stores were all closed, but as 
Harry Singleton passed along, every now and 
then his steps crossed a stream of light blazing 
out of some gambling den or gaudy drinking 
saloon. The clink of glasses and rattle of the 
dice-box were the music of those hours, and on, 
perhaps, until daylight. Those sounds, however, 
had become familiar to his ear, and did not dis- 
tract him, for he confined his share of them to an 


22 


The Golden Crocodile . 


occasional game of billiards in one of the quieter 
resorts. 

He came to the end of the little street, crossed 
the rustic bridge over the Roaring Fork, and, turn- 
ing to the right, struck the trail leading to the house 
he and his partner had bought, to be nearer the 
claim than the town. The distance was something 
over a mile. 

As he walked along he mused on the events of the 
evening, his confidential interview with Davis, and 
the meeting to be held to-morrow evening. He felt 
an unusual elation of spirits, as if the camp had 
suddenly become partly his own, and he responsible 
for things going aright. 

“It ’s a good system, this, ,, he said to himself; 
“these miners know how to do things. It’s a — ” 
and here he used a word which the state of his 
feelings made too strong to be written. “It’s a 
shame,” he said, “trying to do these men out of 
what they ’ve slaved for so long. A hint from this 
committee to-morrow night may make the fellow 
clear out. Davis is a good fellow; I suppose he 
wants to make me feel interested in everything in 
the camp. What the deuce, though, made him think 
I ’d want to tell Shelby for, after he had said the 
thing was to be kept quiet. I suppose there might 
be a row if the fellow liked to make one, and if he 
knew who the men were. But I suspect a man 
who gets run out like that thinks it best to stay 
away altogether. ” 


A Confidential Communication. 


2 3 


As he neared the irregular-shaped log-cabin he 
and his partner had bought, he noticed the light go 
out in the room where his partner slept. “ It looks 
as if Shelby had just gone to his room,” he remarked 
to himself. “I suppose the front door won’t be 
locked, for I haven’t any key with me, or I shall 
have to wake up the Chinaman. And, by Jove! I 
forgot all about that list of stores for the kitchen 
that he wanted. Hang it ! that comes of talking so 
much with Davis about other things. We ’ll have 
to do without the stores till to-morrow.” 

The key had been left in the front door for him ; 
so there was no necessity to awaken any one. The 
small reading lamp was left lighted in the front 
room. 

“I ’ll look over these letters I got before I turn 
in,” he said. “Ah! by Jove!” and then he read 
aloud a scrap from one of them. “Sissy ’s engaged 
to be married in Bombay. Ernest thinks it ’s an 
awful shame, as this will break up his bachelor 
household. But his regiment ’s ordered to Peshawur 
in three months, so that Sissy will be married before 
he leaves. Girls at home both well. They all want 
me to be sure and come back in the spring. Dr. 
Hopkins says I must be careful of the night air in 
the mountains, and if there are any pine-trees I 
ought to sit under them as much as possible when 
the sun’s out. It ’s the new cure for weak lungs! 
Very much interested, too, in what I write about 
mining in the mountains.” 


24 


The Golden Crocodile . 


There were other things in the letter as well. 
Something, too, about the money being sent he had 
written for, part of the little fortune he had come 
into when of age. He needed some of this now for 
the enterprise he was just entering upon. 


CHAPTER II. 


INTO THE WHIRL. 

H IS enthusiasm of last evening had abated noth- 
ing as Harry Singleton rode in the dark down 
the trail to keep the appointment at ten o’clock on 
the following evening. 

He turned quietly into the back-yard of Mike 
Donovan’s saloon, and tied up his horse. The 
entrance to the yard was in a good place to escape 
notice from passers-by, for the land ran back to a 
part of the street which had not been built upon, 
and was deserted at night. 

Apparently others had already arrived, for several 
horses were tied up, and even while he was fasten- 
ing his, two men rode in, eyeing him closely as they 
proceeded to secure theirs. He walked on towards 
the back of the building, and taking the direction 
given by Davis last evening, was soon carefully 
moving, step by step, down the stairway. He 
turned a comer, and saw a light glimmering some 
distance off ; he was at the bottom of the stairs. 

A rough voice hailed him, and a figure stepped 
into the passage-way between himself and the dis- 
tant light. 


26 


The Golden Crocodile. 


“ Nineteen, twenty-nine,” he promptly answered. 

“Pass on, right ahead to the light,” the answer 
came, and the figure stepped aside. 

He moved on, and when he had gone only a few 
paces he heard the same challenge and answer 
repeated behind him. Probably, he thought, the 
other men who rode into the yard as he did were 
following. He kept on towards the light, and on 
reaching it found that he was in a large underground 
store-room, with thick, heavy walls, and the floor 
above supported by rows of pillars. Between these 
pillars, at the far end of the room, he could see a 
small knot of men were gathered. This was evi- 
dently the meeting. The room was so large that 
the light made only a faint glimmer. He thought 
he remembered now where he was; this was the 
basement of what had formerly been a large build- 
ing erected during the palmy days, as he had heard, 
and afterwards being burned down, only inferior 
wooden buildings had been put up. This basement 
now went with Mike Donovan’s saloon, and he used 
what little of it he required. The rest was almost 
vacant, except that barrels and kegs were scattered 
round. The place was well suited for such a 
meeting. 

“Speak quietly,” said Davis, in a lowered tone 
of voice, as they met, the storekeeper having come 
forward on seeing him enter. 

Singleton glanced round the room to see if there 
was any one else he knew; and the storekeeper, notic- 


Into the Whirl. 


2 7 

ing this, whispered, “ You know Watson over there,’’ 
pointing out one of those already present. 

He looked in the direction indicated, and thought 
he recognized the person whose name had been men- 
tioned; but the light from the candle, stuck in an 
empty bottle, was very faint. 

Most of the men, of whom about a dozen were 
already there, were standing or sitting round in 
twos and threes, whispering to each other, or speak- 
ing in undertones, and using expressions which, 
taken together with the gestures accompanying the 
words, seemed to indicate threats of some sort. 

Seating himself upon an empty box, he supposed 
they must be waiting for others to come, as the 
eyes of those present were being turned, every few 
minutes, towards the light at the other end of the 
room opposite the passage. 

They had not long to wait, for presently three 
men appeared at the far end of the room, and were 
soon with them. One of the three was Mike 
Donovan, the saloon owner. Donovan’s arrival was 
the signal for breaking up the side groups, and 
every one appeared to be ready for action now, and 
anxious to go on. 

George Davis and the saloon owner stepped aside 
and whispered together for a minute or two ; presently 
Donovan, drawing a small leather bag out of his 
pocket, looked round for an instant as if to see how 
many were present, and then proceeded to count 
into his hand a number of gambling counters. “ Six- 


28 


The Golden Crocodile . 


teen, that's right, isn’t it?” he whispered, glancing 
up at Davis, who stood by, while the rest looked on, 
from a few yards away, with an expression of expec- 
tation and some little impatience in their faces. 

It was a strange scene, that little gathering. A 
dim candle, placed on the head of an empty beer 
barrel turned on end, occupied the centre. Round 
it the men had now gathered, seating themselves 
on various articles coming first to hand, — whiskey 
kegs, beer kegs, empty boxes. One ricketty old 
chair found in a corner had been brought forward, 
and was placed to do duty for the office of dignity, 
— the chairman’s seat. No revolvers were to be 
seen, but if a search had been made, no doubt in 
the hip pocket of most of those present something 
hard and weighty, put away out of sight, might have 
been felt. The men were all dressed in the usual 
miners’ suits of rough overalls and leather coats, 
with slouch hats. There was a look of determina- 
tion on their faces. Harry Singleton, sitting alone, 
noted everything carefully, and felt* a youthful ad- 
miration for the novel experience he was enjoying. 

“ Silence, now, boys ! ” began the saloon-keeper, 
presently returning with Davis and rejoining the 
others. “Let ’s get down to business. Here, now, 
each one of you take a check out of the bag as it 
passes round,” he said, handing it to the one nearest 
him, adding, “There’s numbers marked on each 
check, and that ’s your name at this meeting. 
You ’ve all got your checks now, have you? That ’s 


Into the Whirl . 


2 9 

right. Then I propose Mr. Davis here takes the 
chair.'' 

A murmur of approval passed round promptly in 
answer, and the storekeeper seated himself on the 
v ricketty chair. 

“Now, then," Davis began, looking round and 
speaking rather deliberately, “let’s start right. 
First of all, I want to say this here business ought 
to be quietly carried on. Speak low; we don't want 
no noise made. Then you ’ll all put your cigars out 
right away, as Mike tells me there ’s nigh on five 
hundred pounds of dynamite and gunpowder laying 
around in some of these here kegs belonging to the 
hardware store over the way, — maybe in some of 
them very kegs you ’re sitting on right now. No 
names is to be mentioned in speaking, only the 
numbers on them checks; that’s your names just 
now. Lay the number down before you. The name 
of the man we ’re to talk about is No. 99. Now, I 
said, cigars out, did n’t I ? ’’ he repeated, speaking 
in an authoritative manner, and raising his voice, 
while at the same time drawing a revolver from his 
pocket, he quietly laid it down in front of him. 
“We ain’t a-going to have this town blowed up, 
and found by the stage-driver lying around the sides 
of the mountains when he ’ll come up to-morrow, 
and you all gone to the angels, maybe. Miners is 
always reckless with powder, anyway." 

The chairman’s determined attitude had the desired 
effect. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


3 ° 

“Now, No. 7 — that's his right number, ain’t it 
— will you tell the meeting just how this thing 
stands, as some of ’em doesn’t know exactly.” 

The man called upon glanced round for a moment, 
from where he was sitting, at the faces turned towards 
him, and began: “Well, boys, it’s like this. Me 
and my partner — ” 

“No names!” from the chair, with a cautioning 
gesture. 

“All right! I ain’t a-going to. We has, you 
know, a claim up there to Ruby Gulch, as we ’ve 
been working for nigh on three years, — sometimes 
getting a little pay, other times nothing at all. 
’Bout a month ago we struck something looked pretty 
good, and sent it to the assayers down below, and 
gets a fine report, making us feel as we was to have 
something back at last for all our work. ’Bout a 
week after we sent that, a friend of mine down to 
Glorietta writes up to me, and he says : ‘ I see going 
up Grizzly way on the stage to-day that claim-jump- 
ing, all-round sharp what was run out of Nevada 
City two years ago for claim-jumping, and what 
stood trial before that for killing a man, but jest got 
off on self-defence, God knows why, ’cept the jury 
was so busy they didn’t have no time to ’tend to the 
case, and thought he ’d get hung some other time 
anyhow. If you ’ve got anything he can steal, you ’d 
best put a padlock on it.’ That’s what my friend 
down there writes up. 

“ Well, ” he went on, “ just out of curiosity, I writes 


Into the Whirl. 


3 1 


to ask who he was, and what he might be like, and 
back comes the answer, describing a man some of 
you has seen hanging around here the last few 
weeks, saying he was wanting to buy a good paying 
mine for a company in St. Louis to stock, and get- 
ting particulars of different claims in the camp, and 
learning all about them. Now, when I hears this, 
me and my partner, seeing we had just come to this 
good ground, and there was considerable talk in 
camp about it, amongst them as owned in Ruby 
Gulch, we thought it was more our business than 
any one’s else to inquire about him, so we wrote 
again, and find he ain’t here for no company busi- 
ness, — that being only just a something for him to 
talk about, — and of course if he ain’t here for that, 
why he’s here for something else.” He paused a 
few seconds and looked round. “What can it be 
he’s here for? Now, most of you knows there’s a 
chance of a mean man making trouble over some 
of the claims in Ruby Gulch, not because of the 
miners’ fault, but because of disputes about lines 
being crooked. That thing hasn’t never been 
settled, and it would cost a big expense of lawing 
to straighten it out, so the miners agreed theirselves 
to leave it alone. There ain’t been nothing for a 
thief like this to steal while the claim was only 
poor; but now we has got on to something here, it ’s 
all to go in lawing, maybe, and all a put-up job, 
too, by a murdering thief what ought to have been 
hung before this. That ’s all I ’ve got to say, boys, 


3 2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


and the question is, what ’ll we do about it? ” And 
the speaker resumed his seat. 

A stifled murmur of threatening expressions 
continued to pass round the circle while No. 7 
was speaking, and when he had finished, comments 
were made in language which was rapidly becoming 
louder and more heated. Presently the chairman 
rose. 

“ I want to ask you, No. 7, if you ’ve any rea- 
sons for believing this man ’s meaning to make 
trouble in Ruby Gulch, besides what you ’ve told us, 
showing that he must be up on some other business 
than what he says ? ” 

No. 7 rose again. “ Why, certainly we have,” he 
replied; “but I ain’t used to talk so long, and I 
kind of thought I ’d told you about it. He ’s gone 
to lodge with a widow woman, instead of staying at 
the boarding-house, and she found papers what he ’d 
left by accident, maybe, one time when he was out. 
He ’d been locking up everything so mighty careful 
that I guess when she found something lying around 
her curiosity was kind of raised, and what she see 
that time just satisfied us. She was a friend of ours, 
and come to tell us. That ’s what I intended to say 
before,” he added. 

As the speaker sat down again, the threatening 
expressions quickly became much louder than before, 
and the chairman had to call for order. 

“Quiet, boys, quiet!” he protested. “Now, 
does any one else want to speak ? ” he asked, rap- 


Into the Whirl. 


33 

ping on the barrel which occupied the place of a 
table in the centre, and looking round. 

“ Let’s get to business; we’ve had enough talk,” 
called out several at the same time in answer to 
the question. And one or two rose as if to move. 
Davis seemed to be losing control of the meeting. 

“Look here, boys,” he urged, in a tone of voice 
which the more noisy ones promptly interpreted as 
a protest, “remember, this man ain’t done nothing 
to you yet, though, maybe, you think he ’ll be trying 
to. You don’t want to be doing nothing foolish.” 

“He’s killed a man, anyway,” several shouted 
out together in answer. “He ought to have been 
hanged before this. There ’s a party here knows 
how that shooting was,” some one added. 

George Davis felt, and the expression on his face 
showed it, that he ought to counsel against vio- 
lence in any shape which might mean bodily harm 
to the person against whom these feelings were 
directed; but when he found that his pacific lan- 
guage was received with so little favor, he realized 
that nothing remained but to let things take their 
course, and the process of selecting from those pres- 
ent must be proceeded with, or otherwise the more 
violent ones would only leave the meeting and 
act independently, and, perhaps, without the neces- 
sary caution. These were his prompt conclusions, 
and George Davis was an old hand. 

He tapped again on the improvised table, — the 
head of the empty barrel upon which the light stood. 

3 


34 


The Golden Crocodile . 


“ All of you put your chips here in Mike’s hat as 
he comes round,” he called out, “and the first five 
numbers as is drawn is the ones to do what ’s right 
in this business. Them as is drawn knows what 
their number is; the rest of the meeting don’t 
know nothin’ about it, and don’t want to; meet at 
the round corral back of the old powder magazine 
in fifteen minutes.” 

A momentary silence, a break in the uproar which 
had now for some time held sway, fell upon the 
meeting as the hat was handed from one to another, 
until it had passed round the little circle. 

The checks were all in. Mike Donovan brought 
the hat and delivered it to the chairman. 

“Would the meeting like to say who shall do the 
drawing? ” asked the storekeeper. 

“Let Mike do it!” half-a-dozen shouted, “and 
quick about it, too,” added some one, with an oath. 

Shaking the hat rapidly for a few seconds, the 
saloon-keeper put in his hand, while Davis kept 
the opening narrowed. Then he drew out five of 
the numbered counters. 

“ 16, 8, 2, io, 13,” he read out in rapid succes- 
sion, and immediately the light was extinguished. 
Harry Singleton was No. 10. 

What the young Englishman’s feelings were at 
this time cannot be easily described. He had come 
to the meeting with the idea in his mind that two or 
three men would be chosen to go out quietly, see 
this man, and warn him that his presence in the 


Into the Whirl . 


35 


place might get him into trouble with the miners, 
— he had heard of that being done sometimes, — or 
that possibly, as an extreme measure, the miners 
might take some immediate action and escort him 
out of the camp, with a threat that if he were seen 
in it again worse might happen. In such a proceed- 
ing Harry Singleton would even have been ready to 
do his share, if chance should name him as one of 
the committee. But when he heard the violent 
threats and language which were being used, a thrill 
of horror ran through him. Could these men con- 
template violence ? They had said this man ought 
to have been hanged before — what could they mean ? 
The situation to him was horrible. He thought 
at one time of appealing to Davis, but when he 
saw that Davis himself was counselling modera- 
tion, and that his advice was unheeded, he realized 
that it would be quite useless for him, a stranger, 
and almost unknown, to say anything. What on 
earth could he do? He felt completely dazed. 
When the drawing was taking place, he watched 
with a feeling of intense interest; he was almost 
glad when his number was called out, — it would 
give him an opportunity to expostulate with the 
others, to reason with them. He might be able to 
prevent any harm being done to this man. 

“ All ’s over ! ” shouted the chairman, as the call- 
ing of the numbers ceased, and the light went out, 
and immediately a rush was made towards the other 
light, and through the passage to the stairway. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


3 6 

As Harry Singleton climbed the stairs, a heavy 
hand was passed down the back of his coat, and a 
hoarse, gruff voice said: “Why, ain’t you got your 
gun? You may need it.” 

He was outside now, in the yard at the back 
where he had tied up his horse. He looked at his 
watch. “The round corral in fifteen minutes,” he 
remembered. Not a horse but his own now stood in 
the yard. He wondered, but could not, of course, 
know that the others had arranged beforehand with 
the saloon-keeper to have theirs taken elsewhere 
during the meeting It was very dark, and no one 
but himself now came so far in that direction, the 
others, he supposed, were going out some other way. 
A man without a horse could get out in half-a-dozen 
places. He mounted and rode slowly through the 
gloom. How would it all end? What ought he to 
do ? Ought he not to go straight home, and never 
say another word to a soul about the meeting and 
what he knew? At one moment the impulse was 
strong upon him, but only for a moment. 

No, he would go on; would do what he could. 
Now these men were out in the air they would be 
cooler. 

He had guided his horse in the direction of the 
place appointed for the rendezvous, and just then 
he heard a whistle which sounded like a signal. In 
the dark he had not seen how close he was to the 
round corral. A man with a mask over his face 
stepped forward and laid a hand upon his horse’s 


Into the Whirl . 


37 


bridle, then for an instant raising the mask, dis- 
closed the features of Watson, with whom he had 
a slight acquaintance. Three other masked figures 
remained in the background. 

‘"Here’s your mask,” said the other, sharply; 
“better put it on now. There ain’t no time to 
lose.” 

Two minutes later Harry Singleton was riding 
with the others through the dark on the outskirts 
of the town. Not a word was said by any one. 
Watson was leading. 

Where were they going ? 

At that same hour, in a front room of a cottage 
standing on an outlying street, having, as yet, only 
a few scattered dwellings, but dignified with the 
name of Bridge Street, which, running as it does at 
right angles to the principal thoroughfare of Grizzly 
Hollow, and away from the course of traffic, is a 
quiet and little-frequented locality, sits a man 
poring over a number of maps and papers which lie 
scattered before him on the table. He is alone in 
the room, and, from the appearance of the house 
from the outside, he may be alone in the house 
also, for no light shines from any other window but 
his. 

“Yes,” he says, apparently addressing himself, 
“it was a good plan coming here; it ’s easier here 
to get in and out at night without being seen. In 
fact, I don’t suppose the old woman has any idea 


38 


The Golden Crocodile . 


that I go out. I shall be glad when it ’s finished, 
though. One more visit, and that’s the last. Let 
me see my note-book again, m-m-m. Yes, that ’s 
quite right. Now let me see that other map again 
— yes, that ’s just where the screw can be put on, 
and this is just the time to do it, too.” And he 
laughed, or rather chuckled, in a disagreeable man- 
ner. He went on again after a little while. “I 
shouldn’t have ventured on this unless it had been 
a quiet old camp, though. That experience I had in 
Nevada City, rather unsettled my nerves. They’re 
a tough lot in that place. But I sha’n’t run any 
unnecessary risks, even here. After I get finished 
to-morrow, I’m off; the rest I can do by writing. 
Won’t they wonder how the deuce I got the par- 
ticulars?” And he chuckled again to himse]f in 
evident satisfaction at his own shrewdness, and a 
disagreeable leer crossed his face. “By the way, I 
did n’t hear the old woman come in to-night. She 
isn’t often as late as this.” 

He went on for some time looking at the papers 
spread before him. But presently he raised his 
head suddenly, as if something had struck upon his 
hearing. 

“Ah ! that sounds like some one — like a step on 
the verandah — ” and he listened. “That wasn’t 
the old woman’s step, though, surely?” he muttered 
interrogatively to himself under his breath, after 
listening for a few seconds. “What could it be? 

I don’t hear it again. Imagination only, perhaps,” 


Into the Whirl. 


39 


he answered the question himself. But something 
made him get up and look carefully to see if the 
door leading from his room into the verandah were 
locked ; then, going to the window, he adjusted the 
somewhat tattered blind so as to better close up 
some of the holes in it. Evidently he was feeling 
a little unsettled for some reason. 

He moved towards the corner, where a locked 
travelling-bag lay. “I ’ll get out my revolver and 
just make sure it ’s loaded before I turn in. I think 
I ’ll keep it out to-night.” 

He stooped, with keys in his hand, to unlock the 
bag; but some one must have been watching his 
movements from outside before the blind was drawn, 
for at that moment the flimsy lock on the door lead- 
ing into the verandah gave way before the weight of 
heavy men, and three masked figures sprung into the 
room. Not a word was spoken, only the quick 
breathing of the men could be heard; but, sharp as 
lightning almost, a heavy horse-blanket was thrown 
over him, his arms made fast behind his back, and 
the horse-blanket round his waist. He seemed at 
once to realize that to struggle would be useless, — 
he submitted, simply. 

Two of the men, marching him between them, 
quickly led him from the house. Only twenty yards 
away were horses. 

“ Put him on, and you three go ahead ; you know 
the trail,” came in a whisper from a gruff voice 
which might have been recognized as that of the 


4 o 


The Golden Crocodile . 


man who raised his mask at the round corral, Ed 
Watson. He seemed to be the leader now. 

The directions were promptly acted on and the 
three men, with the muffled figure riding, and one 
of them walking on each side, the third leading the 
other horses, quickly moved off in the darkness. 

“Come along inside, Doctor, and we’ll set the 
house straight before we leave.” It was Watson 
speaking. They entered the room. “Just look at 
these here papers,” exclaimed the leader, indig- 
nantly; “there warn’t no mistake made about what 
he was doing. We did n’t come any too soon, 
neither. I ’ll put the whole lot in the stove. 
There they go! Now that little game ’s all smoke! 
Then let’s fix up this here lock they had to burst. 
To-morrow Davis ’ll tell the widder that this here 
Stimson has gone horseback over the range, and 
won’t come back this way, as he’s going down the 
other trail, and as how he left word with Davis to 
send on his things by the stage and pay her what he 
owes for board. That ’ll settle everything with her, 
I guess.” 

At the mention of the name which had just fallen 
from the leader’s lips, Harry Singleton gave a sud- 
den start. He was already wound up to a pitch of 
desperation ; but was hoping that when the time for 
action came, when he knew what their intentions 
were, he would be able to dissuade them from doing 
any violence. Thus far he had given no expression 
to his feelings; he was waiting until he knew what 


Into the Whirl . 


4i 

his companions meant to do. Now, however, he 
could no longer restrain himself. 

“ Stimson ! ” he cried excitedly, echoing the name 
that had just dropped from Watson's lips, “do you 
mean to tell me this man is Albert Stimson, who 
went through the Silver Ledge with me one day last 
month ? ” 

The leader looked at him ; his manner, which had 
been very friendly just before, changing suddenly. 
“I don’t know nothing about your private business, 
young feller,” he said, in a chilly tone, and with 
a searching look; “but this here’s the man we’re 
after, and not a bit too soon, as them papers shows. 
There ’s nothing more to do around here, so I ’m off 
after the others; you just put out the light and shut 
the door when you come on, will yer? ” And he 
was gone. 

Harry Singleton did not follow at once. He 
knew the trail they were taking, and had been over 
it sometimes when riding in the mountains. Why 
they had gone that way they had not told him. He 
had not been consulted at all ; they apparently 
regarded him as too young to have any ideas worth 
entertaining. 

His thoughts were in a hopeless turmoil. To 
the feelings which he already had, was now added 
the mental distress arising from the fact, just made 
known to him, that the captive was Albert Stimson, 
a man of whom he knew nothing really, but who had 
been in his own house only recently ; one whom he 


42 


The Golden Crocodile . 


had met, after the free-and-easy manner of the coun- 
try, in the camp, and finding him interested in mak- 
ing inquiries about the mines of the district, he had 
taken through the old workings of the Silver Ledge. 
And now this very man’s life was in danger at the 
hands of these men. 

The situation to him was frightful. It seemed 
as though a month instead of an hour only had 
passed since they were at the meeting. Could it 
all be only a dream, from which he would presently 
awake to find the sun shining over the mountain- 
tops? He looked all round the room. No! this 
was a horrible reality; the life of this man was 
about to be taken, and he himself appearing as an 
accomplice. Something must be done; he would 
arouse the other people in Grizzly Hollow, — that 
would be the best. But would there be time? 
Would it be any use? The men with Stimson were 
now far on up the trail. Before now, perhaps, they 
had carried out their purpose without waiting for 
him. No! he must follow; he must trust to the 
chance of dissuading them. He would ask them to 
let the man go; and Stimson would be only too glad 
to promise to stay away, now that he saw what the 
temper of the people in the camp was. This was 
his conclusion ; he would follow at once. 

He had taken off the mask when he came into the 
room with' Watson, and had been standing with it in 
his hand ; now he put it on again, and, remembering 
Watson’s directions, put out the light and moved 


Into the Whirl . 


43 


towards the door. As he did so he fancied that he 
heard the muffled sound of a retreating footstep on 
the porch outside. He stopped. 

“It couldn’t be any one,” he muttered, after lis- 
tening intently for a few moments. “ Watson told 
me the old woman was sleeping at her daughter’s.” 

Shutting the door behind him as he went out ; in 
another minute he was in the saddle and pushing 
eagerly towards the foot of the mountains, less than 
half a mile away, where the trail which he knew the 
others had taken began to ascend. 

As he started off, a pair of dark eyes watched him 
disappearing in the gloom. They had been watching 
him before from outside as he stood in the room, 
and no doubt it was the footstep of the owner, creep- 
ing off as he appeared to be coming out, that he had 
heard. It was the old Italian woman, the owner of 
the cottage, who, for reasons best known to herself, 
had changed her mind about staying at her daughter’s 
for the night. She said something to herself in a 
foreign tongue, and seemed to be chuckling, but 
only the word “Ingleez” was distinguishable. 

In half an hour he was already well advanced up 
the side of the mountain ; but the night was so dark 
he had been compelled to dismount and lead his 
horse. He doubted if he was making any faster 
progress than the others, who must be half a mile 
ahead of him by this time. Why they had taken 
this trail they had not told him, but he knew that it 
led to the top of the canyon, to the place known as 


44 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Wildman’s Leap, about four miles off. He remem- 
bered to have heard why that was so named, and 
that it was because a poor demented woodcutter some 
years ago had cast himself into the frightful chasm. 
People in the camp told the story, too, about his 
body lying there amongst the jutting rocks; nearly 
a thousand feet from either top or bottom; midway 
as it were between the earth and the sky; and un- 
discoverable until its presence was made known by 
the gathering and circling of the birds preying on 
it. These things coming into his mind brought 
with them a horrible suspicion; he began to think 
he knew now why they had taken this trail ; he had 
often heard men remark in the camp that if any one 
should fall over the edge of this canyon how slight 
the chances would be of the body ever being found, 
or of anything being ever known about it. 

On, on he pushed, stumbling and tripping in the 
dark over the loose rocks. Now he was far up the 
side of the mountain, and looking downwards, he 
could see in the Hollow below a few little specks 
of light glimmering through the haze from the re- 
treating town. He felt as if he were making little 
or no progress; but he knew he must have come 
several miles, and that he must soon be somewhere 
near the summit, — somewhere near Wildman’s 
Leap. Would he be too late ? Would the work have 
been done? The air was chilly, but in spite of this 
he was bathed in perspiration from the excessive 
exertion, and from the nervous excitement as well. 


Into the Whirl. 


45 

Presently a whistle like that at the round corral 
again sounded through the quiet air. 

“Thank goodness ! ” he cried; and, as soon as 
he had answered, the forms of his companions and 
their horses appeared in view against the sky from 
behind a jutting rock. They were awaiting his arri- 
val. A few minutes more and he was with them. 
The muffled figure on the horse seemed to writhe 
as if guessing that a critical time had come. 

As Harry Singleton came up to them, Watson 
spoke. “Just here's what they call Wildman’s 
Leap. It’s nigh on two thousand feet right to the 
water, but nothing ’ll ever get that far; there ’s jut- 
ting rocks and scraggy places what’ll make a good 
enough grave for any man. Now, Mr. Jumper,” he 
said, turning to the muffled figure, and throwing off 
all restraint, “you jest say your prayers, — time’s 
pretty near up. Bob,” he added, turning to one of 
the other men, “you stay here with him while we 
has a little talk on one side. Come this way, boys, 
let ’s talk it over, if it ’ll be hanging or just chucking 
him over. I don’t know but hanging ’s pretty good, 
seeing there ’s trees in plenty around.” He moved, 
as he spoke, some little distance out of hearing, and 
the others followed. 

They came to a standstill, and Harry Singleton 
broke out in a torrent of words, for he felt that the 
critical time had come. 

“Do hear me speak! You must listen to me!” 
he cried out, turning to Watson. 


4 6 


The Golden Crocodile . 


“Well, go on, what is it? ” asked the leader, with 
an impatient air; “but be d — quick about.it. I 
guess we know what ’s a-coming tho’. This here ’s 
what toilers from lettin’ tenderfeet into meetings. 
Go ahead! I s’pose, now, you think he’d reform, 
maybe turn preacher if we ’d let him off, don’t 
yer ? ” 

Singleton paid no attention to these observations, 
but burst into a protest against the action about to be 
taken. “I don’t wish to pretend that I know better 
than all of you,” he pleaded earnestly; “but now, 
after we have all had time to think this over, do listen 
to me.” And then, with something of a touch of elo- 
quence, he proceeded to draw a picture of what their 
feelings would be to-morrow, when, with the sun 
shining brightly overhead, they looked up towards 
the horrible spot from far below; how they would 
feel appalled at the remembrance of this irrevocable 
deed done in the dark hours of the night. “ What 
will our feelings be to know that a human body lies 
rotting up here — our handiwork?” were his last 
words. 

He ceased, and turned with an eager, appealing 
look towards the leader. There was a pause, but 
only a brief one. 

“Young man,” said Watson, slowly, “we had 
some of them same feelings ourselves when we was 
younger; but when you comes to be old as we are 
you ’ll think different about men like this one here. 
We ain’t a-going to be a-wipin’ our eyes to-morrow. 


Into the Whirl. 


47 


The rest of us what ’s here is n’t going to change our 
plans. You don’t have to take no part in this ef 
your conscience don’t like it. Jest you move back 
on your horse out of sight a bit in the woods, and 
wait till you hears us whistle. Then we ’ll be on 
the back trail. 

“Now, boys, come ’long; we’ve had enuf talk 
about this; let’s get to bisness.” And, leading 
their horses, the three men moved back towards 
where the muffled figure still sat motionless on the 
horse. 

Harry Singleton did not move as they had desired 
him, but stood there beside his horse, looking 
in that direction. He was frightfully distressed. 
How he regretted now that he had not brought his 
revolver with him. Without one he was helpless. 
Mere argument he could see was useless. Those 
others were immovable. Their minds had no doubt 
been made up long ago. Perhaps this had been 
arranged by them even before the meeting. Their 
manner seemed to prove it so. 

His companions, looking back, could see him 
there. Perhaps they themselves wished he should 
not be a witness of the final act, for they moved off 
in the gloom amongst the trees and disappeared 
from sight along the brink of the abyss. 

Once or twice he fancied, as he waited, that he 
heard the murmur of voices coming through the 
stillness. Perhaps the wretched man was making a 
struggle, even while knowing how utterly hopeless it 


4 8 


The Golden Crocodile. 


must be. He still stood there, when suddenly — 
Oh, horror! — the sound of a falling, tumbling body 
came with a rumbling echo from the direction of 
that awful gulf and died away in distance. As the 
sound reverberated between the dark walls of the 
precipices beneath, cold drops of sweat stood on his 
forehead. A hideous wail came from the birds dis- 
turbed in their roosting places in the rocks, and then 
all again was silence. 

Ten minutes later the four men, mounted, re- 
appeared, heading back towards him. He joined 
them ; but not a word was said, and in deep silence 
the party descended by the steep, rocky path to the 
Hollow far below. 

The night birds and these men only, knew what 
had been done on Wildman’s Leap that night. 


CHAPTER III. 


AT THE MORMON BISHOP’S RANCH. 

HE months had gone by since the events re- 



corded in the last chapter. The heats of 
summer were past, and the first frosts of autumn 
had already tinged with those glorious crimson and 
golden hues the leaves of the woods on the higher 
slopes of the mountains. The gorgeous foliage 
colors of the dying year were, day by day, creeping 
lower and lower down from the summits towards the 
depths of the still warm valleys below. 

The picture of Nature was a soothing one, and 
so it appeared, perhaps, to the little party sitting 
sunning themselves in the verandah of the Mormon 
bishop’s ranch at Glorietta this afternoon in the 
early days of October. Amongst the party are some 
of our former acquaintances of Grizzly Hollow : 
Harry Singleton and his partner Joe Shelby. 

A pleasant spot was the ranch lying close to 
where the mountains met the spreading plain. 

The foaming waters of the Roaring Fork, hurrying 
down with tumbling rushing vehemence from the 
snows of Grizzly Hollow forty miles above, seemed 
here to brace themselves for the dull, placid life 


5 ° 


The Golden Crocodile . 


before them, out in the quiet reaches of the river of 
the plain ; and came dashing, with a final roar and 
plunge, from a narrow rocky gorge near by; an adieu 
as it were to the friendly mountain which had given 
them birth, then quickly settling into a smooth 
though still fast stream, hurrying over a pebbly 
bottom; sloping up from either side of which lay the 
bishop’s fields of corn and lucerne. On one side, 
on the highest ground, stood the house with flower- 
garden in the front. 

Three miles away, embowered in trees, could be 
seen the little town of Glorietta, and sometimes, 
looking down in that direction, one could see the 
smoke of a passing train ; connection with the busy 
world far off to East and West. 

Sitting in his easy-chair out in the verandah, 
the old bishop was giving Harry Singleton some 
reminiscences of his early days here, the days when 
the little band he was leader of first began the settle- 
ment which had now grown into the town below, 
and overspread the surrounding, formerly barren, 
almost desert country with fields and orchards. 

Stories of encounters with the Indians, of settlers 
killed and scalped by them near by this very spot ; 
of hardships suffered by the settlers' wives and chil- 
dren. The narrative rambled on and on from one 
thing to another. It was a small but pathetic inci- 
dent which led to the old man’s ever settling there, 
for his party had intended to go further on. 

But it happened that while halting here to rest, 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch. 


5 1 


attracted by the richness of the grass and running 
water, both rare enough, at certain seasons, in that 
land of almost endless summer drought, one of his 
children, a little girl of six, and a special favorite 
with him too, fell ill, — diphtheria the old man 
thought now it must have been, from the choking in 
the throat, as he remembered, — and after lingering 
for a few days died. 

They buried the little thing out in the lonely 
wilderness ; and that evening, when darkness settled 
down, the howling of the wolves seemed louder than 
on any night before, as if they were already gloating 
at the knowledge of something quickly falling to 
them, the moment that the human foes they dreaded 
should have moved their camp. 

All night he lay awake, haunted by visions of the 
little wasted body, torn limb from limb between the 
snarling beasts, and almost fancied he already heard 
them crunching up the tiny bones; going outside 
the tent in the early dawning, he was just in time 
to scare away some wolves already burrowing on the 
spot. 

“ Somehow, after that, I couldn’t make up my 
mind to give the word to leave the place, and we 
stayed on and on,” he said, and there was a dimness 
about his eyes as he went on speaking, showing 
plain enough that calling the circumstance back to 
mind, even after all these years, and talking about 
it, had touched a very tender chord in the old man’s 
breast. 


5 2 


The Golden Crocodile. 


“ There ’s the little grave itself,” and he pointed 
to a little white railing standing on the rising ground 
across the river, just at the summit of a sloping field 
of waving clover. “ When the town below grew up, 
and we made a graveyard, they wanted me to move 
it, or what could be found of the bones, and have 
them buried there; but I could n’t do it. Looking 
over to it sometimes, from here, comes like a story 
of those days over again to me, and I should miss it 
if it were taken away. There ’s only one left now, 
besides myself, belonging to those days; they ’re all 
gone — dead. My children can move the grave if 
they like when I ’m gone too,” and there was a shaki- 
ness in the old man’s voice as he spoke. 

There was something very attractive in the old 
bishop’s personal appearance. His clear, though 
tanned complexion, the blue eyes, — a heritage from 
his Scottish parents, — and long, flowing beard, 
almost white, — these, together with a general air 
of benevolent contentment, making up a picture in 
strong contrast to the ordinarily-accepted one of the 
frontiersman : the rough, burly, noisy, restless man 
one only looks for in the land of break-neck search 
after the shining gold. Indeed, arrayed in the 
garb of the Greek or Armenian Church on the 
streets of Jerusalem or Damascus, the old bishop 
would have passed for a typical representative of 
priesthood in the Eastern Christian Church. 

Though still styled bishop, — a title, it may be 
explained, not here conveying a significance such as 


i 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch . 


53 


the general reader understands it, amongst older 
religious organizations, the old man was not now 
an active worker in the affairs of the new faith 
which he had joined as a youth, although still an 
earnest supporter of it. 

He had retired a number of years ago, pleading 
that a younger and more active man was needed, 
and that his own private affairs required more of his 
personal attention than he had been giving them of 
late. The second plea had been accepted by his 
brethren as a reasonable one; for the holding of the 
office was not intended to prevent the incumbent 
from pursuing his ordinary business affairs, — a novel 
feature, perhaps, in a religious organization, but no 
doubt adapted to the conditions of life by which 
the old bishop and his spiritual brethren were 
surrounded. 

“ Brother Johnson would like to see you, Bishop,” 
said one of the workmen on the place, coming round 
presently from the back of the house to where they 
were sitting in front. “ He says some of our stock 
was in his wheat last night.” 

The old man rose hurriedly, murmuring some 
words of regret at the news as he went off, following 
the messenger to the other side of the house. 

“ Have you spoken to him about his Medicine 
Creek claim?” asked Singleton, presently, turning 
to his partner when the old man had disappeared. 

“ Oh, yes, we had a long talk about it before you 
come round here; and I Ve nearly fixed up every- 


54 


The Golden Crocodile . 


thing with him. It 'll be a good winter place when 
we have to get out of the high country after Grizzly 
Camp closes. It ain’t over ten miles from here, 
and snow ain’t bad there in winter to what it is 
above. The bishop says the buildings is much 
better inside than what they looks to be from the 
road. I guess they’d be working it now, but that 
son of his what was looking after it got stuck on 
going to the new rush at the Seven Devils’ Coun- 
try last spring, and stayed there ever since. Be- 
cause of that, they closed it down, for the present. 
I fixed up pretty good terms with him, too. He ’s 
easy to deal with; and, of course, I ’ve know’d him a 
long time. From the way he talks, and what I ’ve 
heard others say, too, there ought to be good stuff 
in there, if it was rightly opened up ; and doing that 
won’t cost us much, neither.” 

“Oh, I’m glad you’ve got it settled so easily. 
What is the old man?” he asked, laughingly, and 
looking round in the direction he had disappeared 
to make sure they were alone. “ Is he a genuine 
Mormon still, — I mean has he got three or four 
wives ? ” 

The man he was addressing returned the laugh. 
“Why, I guess he’s a Mormon all right enough, 
Doctor. But I don’t know about his family exactly. 
Except that he ain’t, as I know, ever got married 
again since his last wife what lived here died. 
That ’s a good many years ago. His daughter that 
lives with him when she’s home, that was her 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch . 


55 


mother, — her only child. The older children ’s all 
grown up and got scattered about. He ’s a pretty 
fine-looking old man, ain’t he? But you just take 
my tip, Doctor, and don’t you worry yourself about 
how many wives any man ’s got round here, any 
more ’n you would if you was in New York or 
London, and you ’ll get along first-rate with the 
old man. Just to change the subject, though, ain’t 
it queer the way he talks sometimes. I hear him 
telling you just now he often felt sorry the railway 
ever come into this country, and wished the mines 
had never been opened. I ’ve heard him say that 
before, and I do believe it ’s just the way he feels. 
Though for sure he ’s got nothing to kick about. 
Why, that land where the town down there stands, 
belonged, most all of it, to him, and when the 
mining boom come made him rich selling it. Still, 
they say he ’d never have sold that, if his grown-up 
children had n’t kept working on him to. He did n’t 
want any money, he said. They was all just as 
happy without it, and the mines would only make 
the people discontented. I guess, perhaps, he ’s 
got over that by now, though he don’t seem to 
spend much on himself. 

“No, I don’t know about just what their belief 
is,” went on Shelby again, presently, in answer to 
a question from his companion, “but when you get 
right down to it, from what I ’ve seen in the years 
I ’ve been here, they ’re a pretty good lot of people 
to do business with; and it’s in business where a 


The Golden Crocodile. 


56 

man needs his religion, to keep him straight, you 
bet. Praying and talking and that on Sundays is 
all right; but it’s what a man does the rest of 
the week figures for salvation, I believe. P’raps, 
though, you ’d best ask the old man himself to lend 
you some of his books and study it up,” he con- 
cluded, with something of a twinkle in one eye, for 
the speaker had been nursing a little idea as he 
rambled along. “Why, I see the old man coming 
back this way, right now. I ’ll tell him you want 
to know all about his people having so many 
wives.” 

Singleton glanced in the direction indicated, and 
saw, as the other had said, that the old man was 
returning. 

“No, no, don’t say anything to him about it; 
don’t tell him I ’ve been asking about it, he ’ll be 
offended,” he protested, and with a feeling of gen- 
uine dislike at the idea, — a feeling which, perhaps, 
his less polished companion could be excused for 
failing to appreciate. 

“Not he,” laughed Shelby; “he’ll think, maybe, 
he can make a convert out of you,” and there was an 
expression on the speaker’s face as if the situation 
were affording him some quiet amusement. 

The old bishop gave them a brief explanation of 
what had kept him so long. 

“Say, Bishop,” began Shelby, presently, looking 
over at him with an expression of assumed serious- 
ness on his face, “to-day being Sunday, me and 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch. 


57 


the Doctor here’s been talking religion while you 
was away. The Doctor wants to ask you some 
questions, but being so young he’s a bit bashful 
about it. It ’s my belief, Bishop, you can make a 
good Mormon out of him, if you ’ll only tend to him 
properly.” 

The old man guessed what it meant. He was not 
unaccustomed to being thus addressed by such men 
as the one who had just spoken, — acquaintances of 
long standing, though not belonging to his faith, 
in circumstances where some stranger happened to 
manifest a little curiosity about his people. He 
knew it was not to be taken seriously. 

The only person at all embarrassed just at the 
moment was the young Englishman. Of the three 
men sitting there, Harry Singleton alone showed 
any signs of being disconcerted; indeed, with his 
English ideas of propriety, his companion’s remarks 
naturally appeared to be a sad breach of manners 
towards their old host. 

The thing upset him the more, too, because he 
had gathered, during the course of his previous 
conversation with the old man, by remarks which 
casually fell from his lips, that he was devotedly 
attached to the faith which he had accepted and been 
so long guided by for spiritual consolation. It was 
a relief to him, therefore, to find that the old man 
treated Shelby’s remarks lightly. 

“ I hope Mr. Singleton will be a better man than 
you are, Shelby, after he ’s been here a little while,” 


53 


The Golden Crocodile . 


was his only reply, with a nod and a smile as he 
leaned back in his chair. 

The only answer to which was a laugh from the 
man he was addressing. 

Later in the afternoon, when they were alone 
again, Singeleton remonstrated with his partner 
about it. 

“Why, Doctor, you’ll find that’s all right; he 
understands me. He knew I did n’t mean anything. 
’Tain’t as if I hadn’t known him a long time. 
Don’t you worry about a little thing like that in 
this country,” he laughed; “this ain’t England. 
But you ’d better stop here to-night, though, Doctor, 
as he wants you to. I ’d stop myself if I could; but 
I promised, before starting off this morning, I ’d 
spend the evening with some friends down below. 
You ’d ought to stop, too, being a young man. 
You ought to be wanting ladies’ society, especially 
after being up there in the camp so long without 
any. ” 

“ What do you mean by ladies’ society ? ” Singleton 
asked with some surprise. “ I thought you told me 
there was no one here but his housekeeper and 
the foreman’s wife.” 

“So I did this morning; but the old man tells me 
his daughter’s coming home to-night from visiting 
her aunt in California, and he ’s going to drive down 
town himself in about a couple of hours to meet her 
at the train.” 

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “I remember, now, 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch . 


59 


you did tell me he had a daughter; but you said she 
was away. Then this is her, coming home? I don’t 
think I ’d better stay; perhaps she ’ll be wanting to 
convert me, as you suggested just now to the father, 
and I might n’t find it so easy to resist,” he added, 
laughing. “ I ’d better not stay; it ’ll be a frightful 
bore trying to pass the time making conversation 
with a school-girl whose head ’s filled with goodness 
knows what kind of ideas.” 

To the last remarks he gave expression only in 
his thoughts. 

His companion saw that he was hesitating. “Now 
you ought to stop here, Doctor,” he went on in a 
persuasive tone. “There ’s reasons why you should, 
seeing that we have n’t quite settled the full terms 
with him for the place at Medicine Creek. It ’s a 
good thing for you to get properly acquainted with 
him too. You just stay here to-night, as I want you 
to, and I ’ll come up to-morrow about two, with the 
team, and we ’ll start back right away for Grizzly. 
We can get to the half-way house by dark. You 
take my word for it, you ’ll like being here. You 
see he did make some objection that whilst he 
know’d me well, he didn’t know but little of you, 
and he ’s queer about these things. He can’t say 
that again if you stays on as he asks you.” 

There was certainly some force in this reasoning; 
and it was not long after until Singleton was left 
alone standing watching the rapidly-disappearing 
figure of his partner driving off. 


6o 


The Golden Crocodile . 


The old bishop himself was not long in follow- 
ing in the same direction, explaining to his guest, 
before leaving, that he did not expect to be back 
before eleven or twelve, as the train was nearly 
always late, several hours, but that the housekeeper 
would look well after him. 

The evening meal — supper — was given him by 
a neat, buxom, fresh-complexioned woman of about 
thirty, — the housekeeper, as the bishop had styled 
her. The woman was a Canadian by birth, a piece 
of information which she volunteered in the course 
of serving up the meal, on seeing that he was an 
Englishman. 

Prompted by a natural curiosity to know some- 
thing of the different classes of womankind in this 
community, with its radical views on matrimonial 
subjects, and noticing that she seemed ready enough 
to talk about herself, he, cautiously at first, put a 
few general questions. 

Her father had been a small shoemaker in Canada, 
in Toronto, she told him. 

“ I ’ve been through Canada myself in the train,” 
he said. “ I should have thought you could have 
found plenty to do there without coming so far away 
from your home as this.” 

“It was my sister got me to come out; her hus- 
band joined the Mormons, and she wanted me to 
come and help her, as she was living at a place where 
it was very lonely, and she hadn’t any near neigh- 
bors, no woman to do a handstir for her, besides 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch. 61 

being sick sometimes, and not able to look after the 
children. 

“ I thought helping her would be better than stay- 
ing where I was. ” 

“ But you left your sister after all, when you did 
come out, so there wasn’t much use in it,” he 
suggested. 

“Oh, no,” she replied, quickly. “I ’m only stay- 
ing here for a month more, then I ’m going back to 
her; and she ’s coming in here to take my place for 
a while. It ’s over at Emerald Springs, the sheep 
ranch is, away out on the plains. It ’s a pretty hard 
life on a woman, though the men don’t seem to mind 
it. Then their work ’s not always the same day after 
day, as a woman’s is.” 

“You ’re going back; oh, I see. Is your sister a 
Mormon as well as her husband, then ? ” he asked. 

“Oh, yes, she ’s a Mormon.” 

Curiosity made him want to ask if her sister’s 
husband had more than one wife, but he hesitated 
about it; somehow the question seemed to him to 
be a little indelicate to put to any woman, even a 
hired woman. He glanced up at her. There was a 
bright, cheerful look in the woman’s face. 

Since the old bishop’s departure Singleton had 
been rambling about the place before supper until 
it became too dark, and he had to come inside. 
During that ramble he had indulged in some 
speculations as to what his host’s daughter would 
be like when he should see her in the morn- 


62 


The Golden Crocodile . 


ing. As it appeared to him, after thinking the 
matter over; those of the weaker sex who were fol- 
lowers of the old bishop’s faith, though they might 
possibly wear, outwardly, a look of deep religious 
fervor and conviction, yet that would in the nature 
— the human nature — of things be but a veil mask- 
ing far less ethereal emotions. 

He had pictured the old bishop’s daughter as a 
melancholy-visaged, unhappy-looking young girl ; and 
in imagination arrayed her in attire to harmonize 
with the mental condition he had conjured up in 
his mind; and this conception he had extended to 
include not merely the girl he happened to be think- 
ing about just at the moment, but the female mem- 
bers of the bishop’s faith at large. 

The conclusion seemed reasonable enough in some 
ways, too. 

The ruddy-faced, contented-looking woman who 
had given him his supper, appeared to be lingering 
as if rather wishing he would continue the conversa- 
tion, and did not seem to have anything particular 
to engage her attention about the house just then. 
At last he summoned up the little bit of courage 
necessary to enable him to put the question he had 
once before already started on. 

“ Has your sister’s husband more than one wife? ” 
he asked, rather slowly, and still with some hesita- 
tion, and he hardly liked to look the woman quite 
straight in the face at the moment. 

“Oh, yes, he’s my husband too, now,” she 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch . 


6 3 

answered, with the same placid, matter of fact ex- 
pression on her features that had heretofore been 
resting there. f 

The woman went on talking. 

“ I and my sister are very fond of each other, and 
the way our family is now makes things pleasant for 
both of us. We ’ve got to live our life, and it ’s 
hard enough any way, but this makes it easier. Out 
there it ’s terrible lonely, and that was what made 
my sister sick. Before I came, she thought she ’d 
have gone mad, so she told me, and she couldn’t get 
away until I came. But she ’s just as well-looking 
now as I am. I ’ll go and get you the picture of 
my two boys, taken last year, to show you,” she said 
presently, bustling out of the room. 

The house was rambling, — partly a one-story, 
and partly a two -story place, of ten rooms more or 
less,- — built of wood, and lined inside with sun-dried 
brick, called adobe, then plastered and papered over 
that; this plan, so people said, assured the greatest 
comfort from extremes of weather, both in summer 
and in winter-time. The wood outside was painted 
white, that is, the walls, the roof a rusty red, about 
the color of old earthen tiles. On the eastern and 
the southern sides a broad verandah stretched, and 
this in places covered in by masses of Virginian 
creeper and honeysuckle, the borders touching the 
verandah filled with plants ; but at this season only 
the petunias and geraniums were in bloom; violets 
nestled in the shade against the walls, but these, 


6 4 


The Golden Crocodile . 


were now long past the spring-time flowering. 
Within the broad verandah a pretty hammock 
hung, just at the corner where the east and south 
sides met; and this was a pleasant spot to lounge 
in of an afternoon. In summer-time a shade was 
always on one side or the other; and even in the 
winter it was often pleasant, when the strong, clear 
spells of weather came for a few days at a time, to 
sit out there in sunshine, sometimes as late as 
Christmas even, and enjoy the endless vista of the 
snow-clad peaks. On the lawn in front a little 
fountain played in summer, the water coming from 
a spring up there towards the mountain-sides. 

Great changes in the aspect of this place had come 
since the pioneer days of long ago, when the bishop 
had camped there, just below the rising ground the 
house stood on. In those early days no vegetation 
grew in summer-time except down on the meadow 
by the river. But now the orchard and the corn and 
clover fields stretched away far back upon the hill- 
sides, and the eye could see a snake-like line that 
passed around the rugged mountain-side into the 
rocky gorge above. This was the wooden flume, 
bringing water from the stream out upon the up- 
lands, which of old were only bare and barren in 
the summer-time; and here upon the sloping ground 
was the bishop’s orchard, the water rippling down 
in little channels from the flume high up above, and 
winding in and out among the apple and the peach 
trees there, which seemed to love the soil, for they 


At the Mormon Bishop's Ranch . 


6 5 

were large and spreading, showing that perhaps the 
old man’s boast was right when he had said his 
orchard was the finest in the country round. And at 
the bottom of the orchard, just where it joined the 
meadow, there stood the water-mill they used in 
the pioneer days gone by; the days the old man 
held in dear remembrance; but now abandoned. 
The stream that turned it, taken from the parent 
stream, still flowing silently along, except where, 
at the fall made by the dam, it broke with noisy 
splashing, as if to call to mind its services of other 
days. Then at the back there were a multitude of 
turkeys, fowls, and other farm-yard life, the yard, 
presided over by a big, shaggy deerhound, whose 
bold, bright eye and well-knit limbs told there 
was blue blood somewhere in his pedigree. 


5 


CHAPTER IV. 


STILL THERE. 



'HE room in which Singleton slept was on the 


side of the house where some large cherry- 
trees, growing close by, shaded the windows a good 
deal; and besides that the Venetian shutters being 
closed made the room very dark in the morning. 
This was probably the reason why he did not awake 
until some time after his usual early hour up at the 
camp. On looking at his watch, he saw that break- 
fast; the hour for which he had learnt from the 
housekeeper last night; would be ready before he 
could. He dressed himself hurriedly and made his 
way downstairs, going to the large front room where 
he had spent the evening, the room which did duty 
— after the ranch style — for a sitting-room as well 
as for receiving visitors ; but the place was empty, 
and he crossed the hall-way to the room where he 
had had supper. As he approached the door, the 
sound of girls’ voices apprised him that some one 
of her own sex besides the old bishop’s daughter 
must be there, and perhaps this made him linger 
a moment, so that something of what was being 
said within reached his hearing. 


Still There . 


67 


“ I just believe, Maggie, that mamma thinks I’m 
going to marry that horrid — ” The opening of the 
door and Harry Singleton’s entrance cut short the 
rest of what the speaker might have been going to 
say. 

A young girl, apparently about eighteen, who had 
been, as he entered, sitting near the blazing fire, 
came forward to welcome him, and introduced him 
also to her companion, Miss Allen, whose home was 
in San Francisco. 

Her father’s absence was explained by his having 
gone out early on some business. The agent for 
the railroad had hurriedly sent up a message want- 
ing to know about some wool that her father was 
sending away, and about which some misunderstand- 
ing had arisen ; but her father would be back in a 
few hours. 

The appearance of the two girls was so much of a 
departure from his preconceived ideas that he was 
naturally somewhat taken aback at first. There was 
nothing about these young women to distinguish 
them from others of their sex. In place of the 
melancholy-visaged, unhappy-looking young female 
he had looked for to represent the old bishop’s 
daughter, he found himself addressing a gentle- 
mannered girl with something of a far-away expres- 
sion in her eyes. A rather sweet, dreamy-looking 
little girl with light brown hair, a small figure, and 
soft light eyes, — blue, some would have said they 
were, but they were not the blue of the old man, her 


68 


The Golden Crocodile . 


father’s; though they were as blue as Nature allows 
eyes to be in those born and brought up under a 
bright sky and in a dry atmosphere. 

The old bishop’s daughter had had such opportu- 
nities for education as the larger mountain town of 
X., a hundred miles away, and altogether a much 
bigger place than Glorietta, afforded; and those 
who were in a position to judge said they had very 
good schools there. Not indeed aspiring to guide 
the youthful mind into paths of transcendental phi- 
losophy or mental and physical microscopical and 
telescopical investigations into the phenomena of 
life and so on, but still really very good for a 
place comparatively so remote. The records of the 
schools she attended do not show that Maggie 
Rankine was any special credit to them ; indeed 
it might be said almost to the contrary. About 
the only thing she achieved any degree of success 
in was her music, but this amply made up for other 
deficiencies. 

A dreamy, soul-satisfied feeling came over the 
listener sitting outside on moonlit summer evenings, 
and all summer evenings at Glorietta were starlit 
if not moonlit, as the strains from her guitar floated 
on the air, mingling with Nature’s own melody, the 
distant sound of the waters of Roaring Creek break- 
ing out of the rocky gorge not far above the house. 
Perhaps, indeed, there was something in the sur- 
roundings of the place which made the music finer 
than it really was. But, so it stirred or soothed 


Still There. 69 

those round, what mattered the opinion of a 
critic? 

This may have been a reason why she did not 
make a greater success of her schooling; and perhaps 
her old father had been somewhat to blame in the 
matter too, for his books on theology and some kin- 
dred subjects to which, with the coming of a more 
settled life than the old pioneer days, he himself 
had given some study, possibly in order to fortify 
convictions which in his youth he had acquired some- 
what impulsively. — Such books were left lying 
about, and as there were only a few other books in 
the house, his daughter had access to these in- 
tended only for older minds; and from them perhaps 
she gleaned the impression, at an early age; that a 
large share of knowledge in the world ; consisted in 
one set of wise men telling the other set that they 
were hopelessly in error. — A condition of things 
which, being realized in advance, could hardly be 
encouraging to a youthful mind not over zealous. 

And indeed apart from this cause, if really it 
were present; some intellectual repose, some in- 
difference to a mere book-knowledge; unless under- 
taken for a set purpose and to achieve some end in 
competition with her fellow- women ; might naturally 
be looked for in one reared in that country where 
her old father had made his home; and where 
Nature, in some of its finest and to humanity most 
appealing aspects, lay spread before her from child- 
hood up. The snow-capped mountains, the bound- 


7 ° 


The Golden Crocodile . 


less, sunlit plains, the bright blue sky above by day, 
the wondrous starry heavens by night, the sterile 
deserts, the snow and iron frost of winter, the 
drought and burning heats of summer, the roar of 
the snow streams in the spring, their low murmur- 
ings in autumn-tide, — all lulling the mental facul- 
ties to restful contemplation rather than inciting 
them to action. 

To the mind of the little daughter of the desert; 
swinging in years gone by out there in her verandah 
hammock on a hot summer afternoon, within reach 
of the sound of the hurrying water, come since sun- 
rise from the glittering peaks she could see over 
there standing up into the blue sky, and bringing 
life to the panting fields and orchards round her 
home; the splashing of the trout stream up against 
the willows, was finer music then, no doubt; than 
the roar of all Niagara seemed in later years to be. 
What her views now were on that novel feature of 
the faith she had been reared in — the marriage 
question — it would not be possible to say exactly. 

Some years before Maggie had been questioned 
on the subject by a woman very many years her 
senior, whose home was in a distant place; but who 
happened to be staying in the mountain country for 
a few weeks, and professed a special interest in the 
welfare of the people she found herself temporarily 
among. 

The inquiry was made rather abruptly, and the 
occasion chosen displayed perhaps a lack of accurate 


Still There. 


7 l 


understanding of human nature, on the part of the 
visitor, otherwise a woman of more than ordinary 
intellectual attainments. Unfortunately, too, the 
visitor had prefaced her inquiry with some com- 
ments calculated to arouse some feeling of hostility 
on the part of the young girl whose inmost thoughts 
she was seeking to learn. The answer that she 
received silenced the questioner for the time-being. 

“I shouldn’t like my husband to have another 
wife; but I should think it was right,” Maggie 
replied very quietly, but firmly. 

That Hannah, — the name, by the way, of the old 
bishop’s housekeeper, — brought up in the slums of 
a city and with the prospect of a hard life before 
her, should have argued herself into the belief that 
the material affairs of life were of more consequence 
than the sentimental; and been willing to share a 
husband with her sister, because it made the life of 
both of them less burdensome; might not appear 
really so surprising; but in Maggie’s case the cir- 
cumstances were so widely different, the argument 
for a departure from conventional civilization so 
entirely wanting, that it seems hard to believe 
that answer expressed her real feelings, unless, 
indeed, her feelings were guided by some religious 
conviction not understood except by adherents of 
her own faith. 

Rather would one incline to the belief that the 
answer was intended as a rebuff directed at the 
visitor; a demonstration of loyal feeling for her old 


7 2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


father, and probably her mother too, if the truth 
were known. 

Unfortunately, however, theory does not provide 
a satisfactory substitute when definite information 
on this interesting point would have been welcome, 
and we are compelled to remain in the dark as to 
her actual sentiments. 

Mrs. , the lady whose question evoked the 

above reply, afterwards expressed herself greatly 
shocked, and announced her intention of immedi- 
ately enlisting the financial assistance of some 
wealthy philanthropic friends in organizing a mis- 
sion to combat — to use her own words — such 
frightful pagan doctrines. And after she left, for 
quite a while there was a little flutter of expect- 
ancy in Glorietta, until a returned traveller one 
day brought a newspaper picked up in New York 
with her name in it. She was getting a divorce 
from her husband for attention paid by him to 
a variety actress during her absence. As noth- 
ing more was ever heard of her mission, possibly 
that circumstance may have explained it. 

Of Kitty Allen, the other girl present when the 
young Englishman came into breakfast, we have 
very little to say really. She was the daughter of 
a wealthy mining man, John Allen, now resident in 
San Francisco, but who had formerly lived in 
Glorietta with his family, and made a large fortune 
during the great mining excitement of years gone 
by, moving away afterwards, because urged to do so 


Still There . 


73 


by his wife, who, having felt the pinch of compara- 
tive poverty for so long until this stroke of luck had 
come, was determined to make the most of life here- 
after to compensate for the past. 

The Allen family were in no way associated with 
the old bishop’s new faith; but during the years 
they were in Glorietta, the two girls, then chil- 
dren, had known one another; and indeed there 
was quite a friendship between them ; which, though 
interrupted for a number of years after Kitty’s 
people left, had been renewed a couple of years ago 
when Maggie Rankine, for the first time in her life, 
left the mountain country to visit her aunt living at 
a pretty place not far out of San Francisco. The 
visit had been repeated this year, and it was from 
there Maggie had just returned, bringing her friend 
back with her for a month’s stay in the little place 
once she knew so well, but had not seen since leav- 
ing it years ago. 

Kitty Allen was a bright, vivacious girl full of 
life and restless to a degree; a complete contrast to 
her quiet little companion; the product of life in 
town with unlimited money to spend ; for her mother 
insisted on indulging her daughter to the extent she 
fancied she herself would have liked in her young 
days, if the opportunity had come to her. This visit 
was made more at her father’s suggestion than her 
mother’s, for Mr. Allen was fond of a quieter life 
than his wife had soon developed a taste for, after 
their large fortune came to them; and he thought it 


74 


The Golden Crocodile . 


would be good for his daughter to have a change, and 
to see that some people found pleasure in life with- 
out so much fuss accompanying, as the arrangements 
of his home nowadays seemed to bring. 

So Kitty had come out for a change, a rest as she 
said; but if the plans she had been talking about 
in the train while they were coming over, were to 
be carried out, the rest might almost as well have 
been taken by staying at home. 

When the old bishop drove up to the house on 
coming home to lunch from the visit he had been 
making; the sound of a rather noisy musical enter- 
tainment reached his ears. The piano inside was 
going full swing, and just then the chorus of a 
popular song; several voices joining in, burst forth. 
As he entered the room, Kitty was at the piano 
playing vigorously, Harry Singleton doing his share 
vocally, and Maggie seated on a sofa, some little 
distance away near the window, was reading, but 
looking up occasionally with a smile as the vigor of 
the entertainment rose and fell. 

“Now then, all join in the chorus this time, ,, 
Kitty was saying, when the handle of the door 
turned, and the old man stood in the entrance. The 
concert stopped suddenly, but only for a moment. 
Looking round she saw who it was. “Why, here 
he is back at last/’ she exclaimed; “you're just in 
time, that's one more; come along, you must join 
in the chorus too," and she started off again, while 
the old man came up smiling and looked on. 


a Still There. 


75 


“I’m going to stir you up, uncle/’ — she always 
called the old man that, — said Kitty, when the song 
was over; “come and see if you don’t remember 
how to waltz,” rising and putting her arm round 
his waist. “Mr. Singleton, you play that waltz 
you know while I give him a whirl. He knows 
how to dance, doesn’t he, Maggie? Yes, I know 
he does,” she insisted. “What’s the matter, why 
don’t you go on?” she asked quickly, turning to 
Singleton. 

“ I don’t know where that waltz is that I can play,” 
he answered, while she stood up ready to start, for 
the old man had made no resistance, and only smiled 
in a good-natured, helpless way. 

“ Oh, how tiresome ! ” she said petulantly. “ It ’s 
just like you boys; you’ve got shy, I suppose. 
Why, here ’s the piece right in front of you. Now, 
do sit down and play it. Why, where ’s he gone? ” 
she exclaimed, as turning round she found the old 
man had quietly slipped out of the room while her 
back was turned, and only Maggie’s laughing face 
greeted her. 

“Father’s afraid of you, Kitty, I think,” said 
Maggie, laughingly. 

“Now, that’s all your fault,” she cried, turning 
to Singleton. “You ’ll just have to take me out for 
a ride this afternoon as a punishment for this.” 

“Well, really, don’t you know, I couldn’t find 
it,” he replied laughing. 

“Oh, yes, don’t you know — I know you dontcher- 


7 6 


The Golden Crocodile. 


knows — you ’re worse than a school miss of twelve; 
you’re just shy, I believe,” and she went on in a 
chaffing way, to which he had become quite accus- 
tomed by this time. “But you ’ll take me out for a 
ride after lunch, won’t you?” she pleaded. “You 
must come with us, too, Maggie.” 

“I’m afraid I sha’n’t be able to stay, although 
I ’d like to very much, if we could get saddles and 
horses. But, you see, my partner at the mine will 
be here in about an hour for me, and I must go back 
with him to Grizzly.” 

“Oh, you don’t mean to say you ’re going away — 
going to leave us all alone? ” and there was a tone 
in her voice which, together with a reproachful 
glance she cast up at him, might have suggested 
that his departure would almost break her heart. 

“I ’m sure father would be pleased,” said Maggie, 
joining in, “if you can stay, Mr. Singleton. Why 
can’t you let your partner go on, and you follow by 
the stage? ” 

“ What ’s that about the stage ? ” asked her father, 
who came in again just at that moment. 

Maggie explained, “Mr. Singleton is telling us 
that he must go on this afternoon to Grizzly, and 
that his partner will be here to call for him in about 
an hour.” 

Singleton made some show of resistance. He 
ought really to go back; they had both been away 
now for more than a week ; but finally he was per- 
suaded to stay and to send a message to Shelby not to 


Still There . 


77 

come up until he should hear from him again, unless 
he himself wished to get back to the camp. 

“It was very mean of you,” said Kitty to the old 
man when they were all seated at lunch, “to run 
away like that just now. I sha’n’t forgive you; and 
it was all Mr. Singleton’s fault, so he’ll have to 
take me and Maggie too out this afternoon, to make 
up for it.” 

“Ah, I used to dance sometimes in the good old 
days long ago,” said the old man, sadly ; “ but I don’t 
think you ’d like to have me for a partner now, and 
in my long boots too;” and the humor of the sug- 
gestion as Kitty drew aside the table-cloth to look 
at them made even the wearer smile a little now. 

“ Oh, I don’t care about the dress one bit. I ’ve 
heard pop say that he ’s often been to dances in the 
old days where the miners and the cowboys danced 
with each other in hats and long boots, with re- 
volvers in their belts. What fun it would be to go 
to a dance like that now, would n’t it, Maggie? Say, 
can’t we get one up? I ’ll stand the supper. Why, 
I ’d just love to dance with a man in his broad- 
brimmed hat and top-boots, with revolvers — five or 
six I’d like to have — sticking out all round him. 
I ’ll just see about getting up that dance to-morrow.” 

The others were all smiling at Kitty’s enthusiasm. 

“But we’ll have a ride this afternoon, anyway. 
Can’t we get some horses, uncle?” 

“We only have one lady’s saddle here,” he ex- 
plained, “and besides, if we were to try and get the 


7 ^ 


The Golden Crocodile . 


horses in from the fields to-day, it would be too late 
for riding by the time they ’d be ready; but if you 
wait until to-morrow, I’ll get another saddle from 
town, and everything shall be fixed up so that you 
can ride just as much as you like.” 

“ You ’re a dear old man, and I feel inclined to 
come round and kiss you. But what are we going 
to do this afternoon? I do hate sitting still;” and 
there was an emphasis in the young lady’s tone 
which expressed more than the mere words, a good 
deal. 

No one seemed to think of anything at the 
moment. Then, presently, the old bishop suggested 
that as there was nothing else to do, perhaps they 
might care for fishing; it was rather late at this 
time of the year, and so many strangers came down 
now from other places by train that the fishing was 
not like it used to be in the good old days before 
the railway came and made it easy for people to get 
everywhere; and the old man shook his head, as 
if even the recollection of what the fishing used to 
be in the early days made him sorrowful, as well as 
those other reminiscences of the past. “ There are 
places near here,” he explained, “if you know where 
to go, I ’m told by the men that they can always 
catch something, — at least I see them with fish at 
times. There ’s one place at the upper end of our 
fields where the water comes out of the gorge. You 
can wade up there, and when you get up a few hun- 
dred yards the ground opens out. Being difficult to 


a Still There . 


79 


get at ; the river ’s not fished much in there, strangers 
don’t know of it. Our fences stop horsemen from 
riding up too, and that helps to keep people out. 
There are some rods with tackle and flies in that 
cupboard in the hall, if you think you ’d like to try.” 

“Oh, that’ll be splendid,” cried Kitty, who had 
been listening attentively, and clapping her hands 
now at the satisfaction of something being found to 
do. “Doctor,” she said, turning to Singleton, — 

“ I ’m going to call you Doctor now; the same as the 
people up in the camp do, as you told me this morn- 
ing, — mind you get me a good strong line out of 
the cupboard and a good large hook. If I’d only 
thought of it when I was coming away, I ’d have 
asked papa for one of the lines he uses at home in 
the bay. What are you smiling at, I ’d like to 
know? ” she asked, glancing up quickly and noticing / 
that he appeared to be amused at something. “ I 
don’t see anything funny ! ” 

“I ’ll get you a good strong line,” he said, as he 
went off to select some tackle. 

Kitty looked rather well, she thought, in the som- 
brero hat that she had brought to wear when out 
riding, for protection from the strong mountain sun, 
and now wanted to immediately try the effect of. 

“ How do you think this style of sun-hat suits me, 
Doctor?” she said, addressing him as they were 
waiting on the verandah for Maggie to join them in 
order to start; about half an hour after lunch was 
over. 


8o 


The Golden Crocodile. 


He looked at her. "Well, if you ask me to say 
really what I think, then I don’t think it suits 
you.” 

“How real mean of you to say that,” she ex- 
claimed, with a little pout; “and I thought it was 
so nice for this wild place after town. Why did n’t 
you say something pretty? Then I’ll go and take 
it off again. ” 

“ Oh, please don’t, just because I said that ! ” he 
protested, laughing; but she had run inside and 
upstairs to her room. 

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” said Maggie, 
coming out into the verandah a minute after the other 
had gone. “ Mrs. Edwards, the housekeeper, wanted 
to see me about something in the house before I 
went out. But where ’s Miss Allen? I thought I 
saw her through the front door with you only a few 
minutes ago.” 

“Yes, she was here; but she went upstairs again 
to get her parasol. She thought of coming without 
one, and changed her mind when she found the 
sun was so strong. Won’t you sit down?” he sug- 
gested, after they had been standing for a little 
while, and Kitty did not appear. 

“I’ll sit down here on the steps,” she said, and 
presently he did the same. 

It seemed as if Kitty must have some difficulty in 
finding exactly the parasol she wanted; and they 
waited on in silence for some little time, in momen- 
tary expectation of her return. 


Still There . 


8 1 


“I should think you must be glad to get home 
again,” he said at last, and glancing, as he spoke, 
at the little face under the shady straw hat she had 
put on for the walk. 

“Oh, yes, indeed, I like getting back home again; 
but I ’m feeling very unhappy just now. The fore- 
man’s wife has been telling me about a poor old 
man who used to live down on the road to Glorietta. 
He was too old to work, and we ’ve helped him for 
a long time. He died last week. 

“He was one of the old settlers out here,” she 
went on presently, after a pause which had succeeded 
the announcement, and he had said something he 
thought of on the spur of the moment; “but not so 
fortunate as many others were, and he worked for 
us some years here in the garden. Oh, only just a 
little, to keep things in order. And when I used to 
go down to see him after he couldn’t work any 
longer, he always wanted to know how this plant 
and that plant was looking. He used to shake his 
head and feel so sorry that everything was going to 
ruin, as he thought it must be now that he couldn’t 
look after the place any more himself. He was an 
old Englishman, and his son sent him quite a num- 
ber of different kinds of flower-seeds from his old 
home years ago. ‘ You never see flowers out here 
like the ones when I was a boy in England,’ the old 
man said to father when the seeds came. He was 
very proud of what he grew from those, too, — poor 
old man, I feel so sad about him.” And there was 
6 


82 


The Golden Crocodile. 


a look in tender-hearted little Maggie’s face which 
left no doubt that the old man, whose heart, as 
characteristic of his race and singularly true of the 
class he belonged to, was true to the last to his 
native land, had one at least to mourn him in that 
far-off place. 

They went on sitting there and talking about 
other things as well until the return of Kitty put an 
end to the conversation. 

“You must excuse me for keeping you waiting 
all this time,” said Kitty, as she rejoined them; 
“but I couldn’t find the parasol I wanted without 
hunting all through my trunks; but here I am at 
last.” 

Nothing particular happened on the way to the 
spot selected, except one little incident which 
served as a useful hint to the young Englishman 
that the free and easy style of the girl from San 
Francisco, was not to be taken seriously, nor as 
giving any particular insight into her real character. 
Possibly, he had already formed the opinion that 
she was a little flirt, and, had he gone away and 
never seen her again, would have given her a char- 
acter for somewhat reckless familiarity with men 
upon a very slight acquaintance; but it would only 
have shown that he really knew very little about it. 

Kitty’s idea of a man was, that if she met him 
anywhere after proper formalities, he might, with 
all propriety, be accepted at once as a boon com- 
panion for the time being; that, of course, suppos- 


Still There . 83 

in g she saw anything about him, which suggested a 
mutual pleasure in the acquaintanceship. 

A man, as long as he seemed to be a pretty good 
fellow and useful to help get up a little fun with, 
need not, according to her code, be put through a 
probationary course until his inmost thoughts and 
ideas had been delved into by her. It was just 
as well to start at once; and if any man should, 
through ignorance, mistake her meaning, why she 
could n’t help that, and an opportunity to dispel 
any erroneous ideas would surely come, or easily be 
found. 

The little incident which served to correct some 
of her escort’s ideas happened as they were all 
scrambling up the narrow gorge along the rocky 
path by the edge of the rushing water, making their 
way to the spot higher up where, as the old bishop 
had said, and indeed Maggie herself well knew, — 
for she had often been there, — the narrow entrance 
opened out into a pretty, rounded dell. 

The little party had nearly reached the end, and 
in fact Maggie, who was some little distance ahead, 
was already out into the open space beyond, having, 
with Singleton’s assistance, given already a number 
of times before to both girls, passed a difficult spot 
where a smooth rock lay sloping into a dark, deep 
pool; and now it was Kitty’s turn to pass the same 
place. 

But the look of it made her hesitate. 

“Oh, this is the worst place we’ve come to,” she 


8 4 


The Golden Crocodile . 


cried. “I can never get over this, it's so smooth 
and slippery-looking. I wish I ’d put on my other 
shoes. These aren’t fit for coming in up to such a 
place as this. Why didn’t you tell me before we 
started what it was like? I sha’n’t trust myself out 
with you again.” 

He only laughed and went on to explain to her 
how Maggie had passed, where she had put her foot 
first on this little niche, then on that, and so on 
over. 

“Yes, that’s all very fine for Maggie. She’s 
accustomed to this kind of thing, living out here in 
the wilds; but I ’m not. I just wish I ’d never come 
at all. Fishing, you call this, I know what I call 
it. But I won’t say just what that is; and there ’s 
my hair all coming down too. What a goose the 
old man was to send us up here. And I don’t think 
you’re much better. You ought to have known 
something about it yourself.” 

“Oh, it’s not really so difficult as you think, if 
you ’ll only do as I show you,” he urged, laughingly ; 
and then an idea came into his mind. He could 
carry her in his arms right round the deep pool, by 
wading in the water. He made the suggestion at 
once; it was a natural and easy solution of the 
difficulty. 

But it was just here that the contradictory ele- 
ments in Kitty’s character found an opportunity to 
display themselves. Although placing so little 
restraint upon her words, the reserve which lay 


Still There. 


85 

behind the outward show of easy familiarity now 
came to the front. The idea of this man, whose 
acquaintance she had only made that day, carrying 
her in his arms was distasteful to her feelings, 
though he had innocently supposed that she would 
at once have fallen in with the suggestion, and 
thought it rather good fun perhaps. 

Instead of doing so, she said something, a little 
quickly too, about being afraid of his letting her 
fall, and promptly announced her intention of really 
making an effort to get over the dangerous place as 
Maggie had done, which was immediately, and with 
no great difficulty after all, put into effect. 

Her escort remarked to himself afterwards, for her 
manner gave him some little clue, that girls like 
her were deuced hard to understand; but he made 
a mental note of it for future guidance. 

The old bishop was right when he said the little 
dell was a good place for trout, even so late in the 
season, and Singleton was soon whipping a fine pool 
into which the stream with a roar tumbled in a cas- 
cade from several feet above it. Kitty had watched 
the preparations with interest, and had a good laugh 
when she found out that her experience of fishing in 
the bay at San Francisco would not be of much use 
just now. 

“I expect you ’ll laugh about me, and you T1 just 
tell everybody, won’t you?” she said. 

“No, of course I sha’n’t tell anybody; why should 
I?” he laughed back. “But, perhaps, your uncle, 


86 


The Golden Crocodile . 


as you call him, may. You ’ll have to threaten him 
with some punishment, when we get home, if he 
doesn’t promise not to. I ’ve brought a rod for you, 
and one for Miss Rankine as well. Shall I get it 
ready for you ? ” 

“Oh, never mind the rod for me. When you get 
a fish on yours I’ll pull it out, if you’ll let me; 
and Maggie’s gone wandering off somewhere,” she 
added, looking round, “so I don’t think she’ll want 
one. Is n’t she a dreamy kind of a girl ? I just feel 
inclined to shake her sometimes. Oh ! there ’s one 
on now!” she exclaimed, as just at that moment 
she saw the line running out, and jumped up off 
the grass where she had been sitting. 

“ Do let me pull it out ! ” 

“It’s well hooked,” he said, handing her the 
rod, “but you must mind and keep the line drawn 
tight. Don’t try to pull it out till I tell you. It ’s 
a pretty good size, I think, and it ’s gone towards 
the deep water near that rock. Take care; keep the 
line tight ! ” 

“ Oh ! gracious, what ’s it going to do ? ” she cried 
out excitedly, as suddenly the fish jumped out of 
the water; and, unable to restrain the impulse, she 
whipped the line over her head with all the strength 
of both hands, and a vigor which the situation 
seemed to suddenly demand. “ Where is it ? Why, 
I didn’t catch it!” she said, in a dreadfully disap- 
pointed tone, as she looked first at the empty line 
stretched far out on the grass behind her, and then 


Still There. 


87 


down into the ripples below; in the far depths of 
which the fish was probably just then telling his 
friends what capital fun there was going on up above, 
if you didn’t mind getting your jaw wrenched a 
little. “ Oh, I am so angry I lost that, you told me 
not to pull it out too, did n’t you ; but I just could n’t 
help it when I saw it jump like that. Do catch me 
another, there’s a good fellow; and I’ll do exactly 
as you tell me next time,” she pleaded, handing 
him back the rod. 

They managed the next one better, for they were 
on a rather steep place, and he had to put his arm 
round her, in case there might be some danger of 
her falling into the water, and then with the other 
hand helped with the rod. 

“What a beauty! and I caught it all myself, 
didn’t I?” she cried, as the little speckled fellow 
lay safely landed this time on the grass. 

“Yes, you managed very well that time.” 

“This kind of fishing’s just fun,” she said, enthu- 
siastic at her success; and nerhaps he rather thought 
it was too. 

The old bishop’s place was a favorite spot for 
Glorietta people — that is, those of them who knew 
the owner well enough — to drive strangers out to, 
people who might happen to be passing through the 
country. They liked to hear the old man’s tales of 
pioneer days. 

It was on one of these occasions a few days after- 
wards that two men arrived while some of the little 


88 


The Golden Crocodile . 


party were sitting about in the verandah just before 
dinner. 

Apparently their coming was by previous invita- 
tion, for one of them promptly broke into a volley 
of hearty greetings. 

“ Hullo, Bishop, how are you? I ’ve brought the 
Professor all right, as you see. Bishop, this is 
Professor Schleinitz, that I mentioned to you down 
town yesterday, was expected. The Professor’s one 
of the scientific men of the day from Germany; 
travelling in our country just to see what we ’ve got 
here. Professor, this is Bishop Rankine, the owner 
of those coal mines you wanted to see. Singleton, 
see you ’re here still. How are you? How ’s your 
head, old man? Got over our little shoot down 
there after the ducks yet? Say, by Jove, didn’t we 
have a time, eh? Ha, ha! Could n’t stand it often, 
though. Ah! Miss Rankine,” to her, as she just 
then came out, “ excuse me, how do you do? Don’t 
think I ’ve seen you since the picnic. I saw Miss 
Allen driving in town to-day. She’s dead on to 
getting up a big fancy dress ball, cowboys and miners 
in full native costume, she told me; and — but I 
suppose you know all about it — she ’s fixed every- 
thing up already.” 

The rattling talker was Mr. Tom Lander of 
Lander & Co., Mining and Financial Brokers, of 
Glorietta, who had just driven out from the town. 

The man he had introduced as the Professor was 
wiping the perspiration from his forehead as he ex- 


a Still There. 


89 


plained to the old bishop, in rather broken English, 
the adventurous drive they had had in coming up ; 
adding, “But I am very glad to meet you; it is kind 
of you to let me see your place. I have much inter- 
est in the mineral productions of these new coun- 
tries, and it is kind of Mr. Landaire to bring me.” 

“Yes, I’m sorry for the Professor,” broke in 
Lander; “we did have a little trouble with one of 
the horses coming up; but he wasn’t trying to run 
away. The Professor hasn’t had time to get ac- 
customed to our horses. They ’re all right, though, 
Professor, when you know them; the Bishop’ll tell 
you that. 

“The Professor’ll be down in a few minutes,” 
remarked Lander, quickly, rejoining the little com- 
pany again, after taking his companion to a room 
inside. “Say, Bishop,” he went on, drawing a chair 
near the old man, and speaking in a rather confiden- 
tial tone of voice, “the Professor ’s a great man, and 
I think I ’ve got him fixed right to work up some 
good schemes when he gets back. There ’s that fav- 
orite scheme of mine; you know it, you’ve heard 
me speak of it before, the — ” and here Mr. Lander 
entered into some details. “There’s millions in 
that thing. You see he’s hand in glove with the 
right kind of people over there, and what he says 
goes. Baron — Baron — oh ! I forget the name now, 
it’s such a jaw-breaker — over there. Rich isn’t 
the word for what he is; and the Professor’s an 
intimate friend of his. Seems to me they’d just 


9 o 


The Golden Crocodile . 


jump at a thing like this, if it was put to them the 
right way, see,” and, as he said the last few words, 
Tom Lander very lightly touched the old man on 
the side, accompanying the action with a look which 
perhaps was intended to say, “You know exactly 
what I mean.” 

There was a good-natured, though perhaps a trifle 
humorous expression upon the old man’s face as he 
listened to the semi-confidential communication. 
He knew the sanguine disposition of the man talking 
to him, and was about to say something, when the 
return of the other visitor prevented any continua- 
tion of the conversation. 

“What’s become of the ‘Daily Cobweb,’ Mr. 
Lander?” asked Maggie, when there came a little 
break in the rattling fire of conversation which Mr. 
Lander’s presence seemed to have brought with it. 
“Father used to take it; but I haven’t seen it now 
for a long time. There used to be some very pretty 
stories in it, that ’s why I ask.” 

“Thank you, Miss Rankine, for the compliment,” 
he said, bowing, “I’ll take that to myself. I’m 
sure that must have been when I was running it. ” 

“I expect it must,” she laughed; “but did you 
write ail those beautiful, sentimental stories?” 

“Me? Never! do I look like it?” and Tom 
Lander, who was a somewhat stout man with a 
round, jovial face, certainly did not look as if senti- 
mental writing would be his forte. “But I ’ll tell 
you a little story some time about that, if you care 


a Still There . 


9 1 


to hear it. That was what killed the paper. It’s 
dead now, went all to pieces, ” and Mr. Lander 
shook his head with an air which might have been 
interpreted to mean that the stoppage of the paper 
was a dreadful blow to the community at large. 

“But why not tell me it now? ” she urged. 

“Well,” he began presently, yielding to her solici- 
tations, “this is how it happened. It was one 
bright spring morning that a young lady, a school- 
teacher, came into my office, bursting into a flood of 
tears just as she entered the door. She was a beau- 
tiful girl, just a lovely girl, and that ’s saying a good 
deal; for the beauty of the girls at Spider Creek — 
that was where we published the paper, you know — 
was admitted all over the world, — well, perhaps I ’ll 
have to shave that a little, — I ’ll make it all over 
the States, though that’s about the same thing, any- 
way. But about this beautiful young lady, this 
young school-teacher, she came, as I said before, 
into my office in a passionate flood of tears. 

“‘ My dear creature,’ I said, feeling utterly aston- 
ished, and gently closing the door leading into the 
next office, for there was a young lady type-writing 
some of my editorials in round there, ‘ what is the 
matter ? What can I do for you ? ’ 

“Well, it was a long story; but the upshot of it 
was that she ’d fallen desperately in love with our 
poet, the man who ’d been writing those stories. 
She had come, she said, with tears in her lovely 
eyes, to beg if she might only be permitted to gaze 


92 


The Golden Crocodile . 


from a distance at the beautiful being who could 
have such heavenly inspiration. She realized that 
his surroundings must be too dazzling to permit of 
a near approach. 

“ You can see my position was a most embarrass- 
ing one, and I hardly knew what to do. I tried to 
put her off for that day by asking her to call again, 
thinking her mind would be calmer; but nothing I 
could say seemed to be of any avail, and I really 
thought she would go into hysterics if I didn’t do 
something pretty quick. 

“ I rang the bell for the office boy. 

“‘ Johnny, ’ I said, speaking rather more familiarly 
than I usually did, as I had something in my mind, 

‘ is Mr. Kennedy ’ — that was n’t his name, but I ’ll 
call him that — ‘ is Mr. Kennedy in? ’ giving at the 
same time the little wink of the left eye that I ’d 
trained my last boy to understand. He was a bright 
boy, the last one, and knew how to take a hint 
quickly ; but this was a heavy-visaged specimen we 
had picked up somehow. 

“‘ He’s bin a-lickerin’ an’ fightin’ again, an’ got 
in the jug this time,’ — those words, those very 
words, came from his lips and dropped on me like 
hot shot. 

“‘Hush, you little — ’ I shouted, trying to stop 
him; but that imp couldn’t be stopped by anything 
on earth. 

“The poor girl had heard it all, and with a sob of 
anguish sunk fainting on the floor; my heart ached 


Still There. 


93 


for her. Of course it was a dead give-away; the 
girls’ schools all got on to the story; it was a bad 
business for the paper. Broke it all up. Yes, 
that ’s a true story,” he said, looking round far above 
the heads of the company as much as to say, “ Don’t 
question a word I ’ve told you.” 

“What horrible fibs you do tell, Mr. Lander!” 
cried Maggie, after the criticisms had subsided; 
“I’ll tell your wife, the next time I see her, the 
kind of things you talk about when you ’re away 
from home.” 

“Tell her? Oh, you couldn’t make her believe 
anything bad about me; besides she knows herself 
that story’s true. She was the very girl; married 
me afterwards. She took a dislike to poets after 
that. Ha! ha!” 

“Thought you ’d be a good safe investment in the 
opposite direction, perhaps,” suggested Singleton. 

“You’re getting worse and worse,” laughed 
Maggie. “I wish Miss Allen had come back this 
evening; she’s more a match for you, Mr. Lander, 
than I am. Mr. Singleton, won’t you help me, 
won’t you make him talk about how many ducks he ’s 
shot; and then we sha’n’t really know how bad he 
is?” 

They were sitting out in the verandah afterwards, 
that is, the men, smoking, and some one had been 
asking the Professor what he thought of the country, 
and what he had seen. 

“I haf not,” he replied, “been studying any of 


94 


The Golden Crocodile . 


your bolitical and social problems; but rather I haf 
been partly trying to learn what room is still 
remaining in your country for the millions who will 
yet haf to come from Europe. ” 

“Millions more coming here,” echoed Tom 
Lander, with some tone of alarm in his voice, as 
if something serious were about to happen. 

“I am afraid it is zo. You will still haf to make 
room for them. There is a great grisis at hand that 
must surely disperse the vast aggregations of people 
gathered in certain blaces. The industrial Towers 
of Babel which have been built zo high must fall 
from their own magnitude. Then the peoples must 
come where you haf spaces for them. There is 
nowhere else they can go. Ah, the great future, 
the unknown!” he went on gloomily, “I am grieved 
to think how it will end for the human race; it is 
in my mind a melangoly subject to gontemplate. ” 
Tom Lander inwardly surmised that the visitor 
had come upon some pet topic; and as the subject 
was of too remote a character to interest a man of 
his practical turn of mind, the conversation dropped 
for a while, and then Maggie came out, and they 
sat silently listening to the strains of her guitar, 
with which, in response to a general request, she 
entertained them. 

Late in the evening, Tom Lander took the oppor- 
tunity to offer a few remarks in characteristic impul- 
sive manner for the benefit of the foreign visitor. 

“ When you get back to your own country, Profes- 


Still There. 


95 


sor, of course you’ll write a book about us, every- 
body does; and there ’s one thing I want to ask you 
to do before you ’ve quite done describing in it all 
the wicked ways we have over here; just turn your 
gaze on things close around you at home. Have a 
good look in there first. Ha! ha!” 

But the visitor only gave a little good-natured 
laugh in return, and disclaimed any such intentions. 
“Well, I’ll have to bid you good-bye then, as you 
won’t trust yourself to go home with me. I ’m sorry 
you have to go away to-morrow, as I sha’n’t see 
you again. But I ’ll expect to hear from you. You 
won’t forget, when you ’re gone, about those things 
I talked to you about, will you ? ” And, with a gen- 
eral adieu, the jovial man of schemes was gone. 


CHAPTER V. 


A QUIET LITTLE GIRL AROUSED. 

T the ranch Harry Singleton was still lingering; 



even after the week had passed, for his partner 
had not waited, but gone on up alone, and had 
indeed two days ago come down again, so there 
really seemed no urgent reason for him to move 
from the agreeable surroundings he was in, no 
reason to hurry back to the rough life of the camp 
above; and he had been unable to resist the invita- 
tion to remain. The days passed pleasantly in rides 
and little excursions here and there. 

He had started off one morning with his old host 
to see some work going on on the place a mile or 
two distant, intending to stay away all day, when 
something occurred bringing him back to the house, 
after a few hours’ absence, alone, and of course un- 
expected. They had flushed some prairie chickens 
while driving along the road, and, having his gun 
with him in case of just such a contingency, he 
had left the old man, and followed the birds. 

The day was unusually warm for so late in the 
season; and, on reaching the house, he found Maggie 
sitting out on the steps in front, apparently en- 


97 


A Quiet Little Girl Aroused . 

joying the sunshine and doing nothing else. His 
unexpected arrival seemed to startle her from a little 
reverie, for the place was very quiet; nobody else 
was to be either seen or heard. 

She looked up rather quickly on hearing the sound 
of his footstep as he came suddenly round a corner, 
and a dreamy expression which had been in her face 
before immediately gave place to one of alarm, as 
though she feared something — an accident perhaps 
— might have happened to her father, to the team 
he was driving. A few years ago such a thing had 
occurred, for the old man, in spite of his years, liked 
to drive some of his best horses. But his looks 
reassured her. 

“ You ’re surprised to see me back so soon,” he 
called out, as he approached and noticed the look of 
inquiry in her face; “but here is the reason of it,” 
and he held up a brace of prairie chickens. “ I 
couldn’t resist the temptation to abandon your 
father for these. If I hadn’t had to follow them 
so far I should have joined him again; but they 
took me a long chase right in the opposite direc- 
tion before I could get a shot at them, and then 
they went right off, so I thought I ’d better come 
home. 

“I’m afraid I interrupted you in a pleasant 
reverie,” he said, coming back after standing his 
gun in a corner, and proceeding to draw up an 
easy-chair near the steps on which she sat lower 
down. “ What ’s become of Miss Allen ? The house 


7 


9 8 


The Golden Crocodile. 


is so quiet I can almost guess she ’s gone out some- 
where.” 

“Yes,” and there was a little smile on her face 
at his remark about her other visitor. “ Mr. Lander 
drove up about an hour after you and father left. 
He had promised to come for her to-day and take 
her to see some one she wanted to meet. It was 
something, I did n’t understand exactly what, about 
arrangements for this dance she ’s so set her mind 
on getting up. Mr. Lander had promised her to get 
the names of people at the different ranches, and 
some in the mining camps. She ’s going to have 
things now on a larger scale than she first thought 
of; going to have it at a school-house and to have 
tickets. Only she provides the refreshments and 
all expenses; then the money for the tickets goes to 
the hospital at X.” 

“ Oh, indeed ; that seems rather a good idea ! Who 
thought of that ? ” 

“I think she said Mr. Lander put the idea into 
her head. She went to him at first, so he says, — 
but you know the way he talks, — to get the names 
of all the desperadoes in the country round, as she 
intended to invite them, and thought that he was the 
most likely man to know them.” 

“That’s Lander’s story of course,” he laughed. 

“Yes, that’s what he told me, while Kitty was 
getting ready. But he persuaded her to change her 
plans so as to make something out of it for charity.” 

“She ’s given up the desperado idea then? ” 


A Quiet Little Girl Aroused. 


99 


“Oh, I expect Mr. Lander’s story may be only 
his joking. Perhaps she never said anything of the 
kind. He exaggerates everything so, if he thinks 
he can make any fun out of it.” 

“Well I ’m rather sorry I sha’n’t be able to stay 
for it myself. But I ’ll be very glad to take a 
ticket.” 

“Oh, won’t you stay for it after all? Kitty will 
be disappointed when she hears that.” 

“To tell you the truth, I don’t dance. So at best 
I should only be a spectator; and then you know I 
see so much of the rougher element up at the camp 
that the offer of an opportunity to see a little more 
of it, even under the restraints of civilization, does 
not appeal to me very strongly,” and there was 
an expression in his face, as he made the last few 
observations, suggesting that some thoughts of the 
horrible experience he had been through only a few 
months ago had been brought back to his mind by 
the reference to desperadoes. 

“ Speaking of dancing, though,” he went on again, 
“ every one here, even among the roughest people, 
seems to be a dancer. It surprised me when first I 
came. If I stay here much longer perhaps I shall 
take to it myself,” he laughed. “Still this is what 
I call a real enjoyment, better than dancing. Sitting 
out here doing nothing, I mean. Don’t you? ” 

She made some little reply only, and then left it 
to him to keep up the conversation. 

He had been rather wanting to learn something 


100 


The Golden Crocodile. 


more than he had been able to so far; which indeed 
was nothing at all ; about the inward thoughts of his 
old host’s daughter. This not unnatural desire had 
come into his mind a number of times during his 
stay. Had she been a Mohammedan, a Hindoo, a 
Buddhist, or belonged, indeed, to any old-fashioned 
creed with the appropriate race-distinction; the 
subject would not have given him a moment’s 
thought ; but a young girl, hardly different from one 
of his own sisters, being guided by the teachings of 
a prophet sprung up in the nineteenth century, 
seemed such an anomaly. 

He had noticed her occasional fits of mental 
abstraction, the dreamy way she sometimes had even 
when others were present, and for which Kitty had 
once characteristically remarked that she would like 
to shake her; and he surmised there might be some- 
thing in the nature of this new religion of hers to 
explain it. He had felt more than ordinarily inter- 
ested about these things, but there seemed no way 
to satisfy his desire for information. An explana- 
tion might be hazarded, however, and probably it 
would be not very far from the truth, that her mental 
abstraction, was in part at least, a result of the some- 
what chaotic condition of the young girl’s mind on 
the subject of religion, not with reference to some 
special tenet of her father’s faith, but with respect 
to religion in general. 

Unfortunately, she had read too much of what the 
assailants of her father ? s creed had written, to the 


A ^uiet Little Girl Aroused . 


IOI 


effect that her prophet was a false one, and other 
things about him ; and naturally afterwards she read 
the replies by the heads of her own church to the 
attack. 

The only result of this reading had been, to create 
a strong feeling in her mind, that if the prophet of 
her church was a false one, so, most likely, were all 
the older prophets as well, — since all prophets, 
both old and new, had arisen under circumstances 
very much alike. 

But perhaps this morning her meditations before 
he came had had nothing whatever to do with this 
subject which so often troubled her mind. 

He had drawn up an easy-chair near the steps on 
which she still sat lower down, and glanced down at 
the thoughtful, though, for her age, rather childish 
little face peeping under the sun-hat she was wearing. 

“ I wonder what you were thinking about just now, 
when I disturbed you,” presently he began. * “I 
noticed you looked rather serious. I know you ’ve 
been here some time, because I saw you from the 
distance before I crossed the river up above. Is this 
what you do all day when there ’s no one at home ? ” 

“ Perhaps I did look serious just at the moment,” 
she replied. “ You know father had a bad accident 
some years ago through a runaway, and the thought 
rushed into my mind, directly I saw you, that some- 
thing like that might have happened.” 

“Ah, I see, that explains it; but what have you 
been thinking of, sitting out here all the morning? ” 


102 


The Golden Crocodile . 


“Oh, I haven't been so idle as that. I haven’t 
been out so very long. I was doing something in 
the house most of the morning. But you know, on 
a day like this, I do so love to sit out here and just 
watch the mountains; they’re such old, old friends 
of mine; and sometimes I keep looking and looking 
at them till I feel as if they were actually living 
beings, and I stay on and on.” 

“Yes, I think they are rather fascinating,” but 
he was a little surprised at the subject she had been 
musing on, when he had supposed it to be probably 
the one he had in his own mind; “though I never 
got so far as to regard them in quite such a light as 
that,” he added. 

“Do look at that cloud up there now, isn’t it 
beautiful? I was watching that for a long time 
before you came, seeing it slowly growing larger 
and larger; ” and she pointed to a fleecy mass slowly 
forming out of the vapor from the burning rays of 
the noonday sun upon the glittering mantle of one 
of the nearest peaks, — the one only cloud in the 
spotless blue vault above. 

“Often, day after day, in summer that forms up 
there, and then sails away out of sight in the after- 
noon as the sun begins to go dow r n. I wonder where 
it goes to, just that one little cloud all by itself. 

“You know,” she went slowly on again, “it ’s not 
so much at this time of year the mountains seem 
to me so lifelike, so like living beings; but it’s 
when there is more snow upon them, when the 


A £>uiet Little Girl Aroused . 103 

seasons are changing: at the beginning of the 
winter, when the snow is creeping down, down to- 
wards the valleys here, and I watch the sun trying, 
oh, so hard, to keep it back. Or in the spring, 
when each day is growing warmer, and the sun 
seems suddenly one morning to remind the snow 
down here, that it ’s time to move away and give the 
things a chance to grow. Then the snow starts 
back up the mountain-side again, quite quickly at the 
first, but as it gets up higher and higher sometimes 
it rests in one spot for days together ; and when it 
stops like that I always think it must be quarrelling 
with the sun, saying that it has gone up high enough 
and won’t go any further; but if it stays still for 
very long, I watch the sun’s face every day, and I 
see it slowly getting angry, until some morning it 
comes up from behind the range looking, oh, so red 
and fiery, and the snow begins to climb again. It 
knows, I think.” 

She paused, and he said something about the 
pleasure she must find from the interest she took in 
such things. But there was an air of sadness rather 
than of pleasure in her voice towards the end, though 
perhaps he had not noticed it. She did not seem 
to be paying much attention to his words, and when 
he ceased there was silence for a little while. 

But presently she turned her head, glancing 
quickly up at him for a moment, as if she wished to 
read his face. Perhaps his look encouraged her, 
perhaps decided her to tell something of her inward 


The Golden Crocodile . 


104 

thoughts into a sympathetic ear, as she fancied his 
might be. 

“ There was a time — ” she went on, but very 
hesitatingly, as if almost afraid — “ years ago, I 
hardly ever thought of these things, — of what was 
going on around me everywhere, — of the mountains 
and the sky, and of the stars at night, although 
they had been before me always; I didn't seem to 
see them, or to think of them, until the time had 
come when — ” 

She stopped. Her voice had dropped almost 
out of hearing; although he sat not far away, she 
seemed now to be speaking rather to herself than to 
him. A strange light had come into her eyes, as 
though they were fixed on something far away. 
Suddenly the light there faded, a little fluttering 
came around the corners of the childish mouth, and 
her soft blue eyes were swimming now in tears. 

He could not see from where he sat this passing 
in her face, and when she stopped he only looked 
down in surprise. 

All at once she rose without a word, and trying, 
as she passed him, to conceal her face as much 
as possible, she left him sitting there and went 
indoors. 

Her listener did not understand, though after- 
wards he knew. “When strangers taught me to 
despise my faith; but I could not take theirs in 
place of it, my trust in all was gone. ” That was 
what she meant to, but could not say. And now 


A £>uiet Little Girl Aroused. 105 

there was nothing left her in her loneliness. In- 
stinctively: unconsciously she had turned to God. 
God as men first saw him in the olden time. 

He sat on there, wondering for half an hour what it 
was that had so suddenly affected her, but was quite 
unable to decide; and in the absent-mindedness 
accompanying his reflections he had not noticed the 
near approach of a lad up the garden pathway from 
the public road down at the foot of the slope, who 
presently came up and accosting him, inquired if he 
were not Dr. Singleton. 

“My name is Singleton,” he answered. 

“Then I guess this letter’s for you. I promised 
to leave it as I was passing by. I ’ll be back this 
way in about an hour and take the answer with me, 
if there ’s one.” 

It was from his partner. There had been an acci- 
dent at the mine. The wall of an old tunnel had 
fallen in, crushing one of the men. He was not 
dead, but in a very serious condition, and hardly 
expected to live. 

Shelby must go up at once. He would call at the 
bishop’s place to-morrow at nine o’clock, but Single- 
ton need not come unless he wanted to; the man 
was being cared for. 

The letter came as a rather rude awakener to him 
from the somewhat dreamy subjects his mind had been 
led on to by his little companion during the morning; 
and he hurriedly scribbled an answer in pencil on 
the letter to say he certainly would go up too. 


io6 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Maggie had quite recovered her cheerfulness 
when he went inside and found her helping to lay 
the table for the lunch; but no reference was made 
by either of them to the little incident. 

“ Must you really go ? ” she asked, as he explained 
that some serious damage had occurred, but pur- 
posely omitted that some one had been injured. 

“I’m afraid I must; I don’t think it would be 
quite right to stay behind, as the matter is so 
serious. It’s most unfortunate though. 

“ Don’t you think,” he suggested to her a little 
later on as they were sitting alone at lunch, “that 
we might take that ride this afternoon? I mean 
the one that you and Miss Allen were speaking 
of the other day. You remember it was one you 
used to like so much up the trail leading to the 
point of the mountain where the caves are, I think 
you said.” 

He spoke rather softly. He did not care much 
about caves and scenery himself ; but, now that he 
was going away immediately, he felt a longing to 
have as much of the little girl’s company to himself 
as possible, and if they stayed at home some of the 
others might return at any time, and then he would 
see little more of her. 

“You know,” he went on, as she seemed to hesi- 
tate, “perhaps the snow will be on the ground before 
I can come down again from Grizzly.” 

He seemed so anxious to go that at last, whatever 
the reason in her mind for hesitating was, she set it 


A §>uiet Little Girl Aroused. 107 

aside, and a little later on they were mounted, — 
Maggie on her pony, one which she had had for 
years, quite a small animal, so that she could easily 
mount it without assistance, as she often had to in 
going out by herself, for she was fond of taking 
lonely rambles up and down the mountain trails. 

The pretty wide-brimmed sun-hat at all times 
suited Maggie’s little face, and especially so just now, 
her companion seemed to think; for he cast a furtive 
glance, as if of admiration, towards her from time to 
time as they rode along somewhat silently side by 
side. But very soon they could no longer ride to- 
gether; the foot of the mountain was reached, and 
the narrow trail began its zigzag upward course. 
They could only move in single file. 

“ My pony knows the path best,” she said, turning 
to him. “ Don’t you think I had better lead the 
way ? ” 

“ Perhaps that would be as well ; and then I can 
watch you and see that you’re all safe, you know,” 
he replied gallantly; “for I had a very narrow shave 
last summer, that coming up this very steep place 
reminds me of, and I’ve been a little bit nervous 
about girths breaking ever since. Two of us were 
out looking for some elk that had been seen about 
ten miles from Grizzly, and I was leading my horse, 
when, just as we were climbing round a point where 
there was a frightfully steep place on one side, a 
precipice, — oh ! a thousand feet, perhaps, — both the 
girths gave way and the saddle rolled, until it stopped 


io8 


The Golden Crocodile. 


only a foot from the edge; so close that I had to 
kneel down on the ground and reach out to drag it 
back. If I ’d been in the saddle then I shouldn’t be 
here now.” 

“That was a terribly narrow escape; but I ’m sure 
there are no places as bad as that along here.” 

“I’m going to get some of these autumn leaves 
for your hat,” he said, presently, pointing to some 
specially lovely tinted ones not far from where they 
had stopped for a breathing space, “if you don’t 
mind holding my horse for a few minutes.” 

“Oh, thank you, but what can I do with them 
until we get back ? ” she asked as he returned and 
presented them. 

“Pin them in your hat now, of course.” 

“Yes, if I only had some pins.” 

“Look here,” and he held up a little pocket-book 
with some in it. 

“Why, you’re more careful than a woman, carry- 
ing such things about with you. Do you always? ” 

The question was asked quite innocently, quite 
naturally; but his answer “Yes” was probably a — 
well never mind. 

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, as they suddenly 
rounded a corner, after toiling up and up for two 
hours or more. “ I had no idea you could see so much 
from one point. Why, it looks as if you could easily 
walk up to the snow from here, doesn’t it? And I 
can just make out the people in the harvest fields 
below. I wish I’d brought my glasses with me.” 


A ^uiet Little Girl Aroused ’ 109 

“I thought you ’d like it,” she said, pleased at his 
enthusiasm, while they were both resting on the 
small grassy plot kept green by a trickling spring 
coming from a little way up the rocky and, round 
here, somewhat barren mountain-side. 

“ Whereabouts are those caves from here now ? ” 
he asked. “ I mean the one where you said the 
mummified old Indian chief and his family were 
found. Are they much farther on ? ” 

“Oh, it ’s not far; but I ’m afraid it ’s too rocky 
and steep to take the ponies.” 

“Don’t you think they’ll be all right here, if we 
leave them tied? Suppose we go up there; that is, 
if you ’re not afraid of the climb.” 

While they were making their way over the rough 
ground in the direction of the cave, she told him all 
about the appearance of the strange old Indian chief 
and his wife and children, who had been found 
in a vault beneath the floor of the cave; how the 
dried-up bodies were almost lifelike in appear- 
ance, especially the old chief, whose iron-gray hair 
was bright and glistening even; the sitting posture 
they were in helping to give them a strange air 
of life. 

“I used to so like going to look at them when 
they were in the barn belonging to the ranchman 
who found them, before they were sent away, ” she 
said, and there was something in the tone of her 
voice just then reminding him of the little incident 
of the morning out in the verandah. 


I 10 


The Golden Crocodile. 


“That wasn’t a very cheerful subject for you to 
take a fancy to.” 

“I don’t know why I went; but looking at them 
used to bring such strange thoughts into my mind. 
I often dreamt about them afterwards.” 

“ Well, it was n’t a bad place to be buried in either, 
was it ? ” he suggested, as at last they stood peering 
into the black darkness at the far end of the dismal- 
looking cavern they had toiled over so much rough 
ground to see. 

“I suppose,” he went on, “it must have been in a 
cave something like this they buried Abraham and 
Sarah. What do you think?” Then suddenly he 
remembered that of course she would not know who 
he was talking about, as she had a different Bible. 
That was his idea, at least. But what she said in 
answer showed that he was mistaken somewhere. 

“Perhaps the old chief was a kind of Indian 
Abraham himself,” he said, laughing; but as she 
did not make any reply, he went on talking at 
random. 

“ I rather like the idea myself of being buried in 
a cave, it’s so dry and snug, isn’t it? Much more 
comfortable than wet, clammy ground where there ’s 
water about.” 

“ Except that one runs the risk of being dug up a 
thousand years afterwards and stuck up in a museum. 
Rather flattering to one’s vanity, though, after all.” 

“ How ’d you like that ? ” he asked her, rattling on 
in a joking kind of way. 


A £>uiet Little Girl Aroused . 


1 1 1 


But her answers were strangely mechanical just 
now. It seemed as if the subject of death had turned 
her thoughts inwardly. 

They sat for some time on the ledge of rock near 
the mouth, talking about caves and mummies and 
ancient people generally, and engaging in specula- 
tions as to how many hundreds or thousands of years 
the old chief and his family might have lain there, 
urltil at last Maggie suggested that perhaps they had 
better be thinking of getting back to the horses; and 
they were just about to move, when Singleton’s eye 
fell on something which caused him to draw back 
and utter an exclamation of some surprise. 

“Holloa!” he cried, “what’s over there?” and, 
going across to the other side of the wide entrance, 
he began carefully examining the large tracks of some 
wild animal in the fine dust on the floor of the cave. 
But the wind, blowing the light dust about, had almost 
filled up the tracks, so that it was not possible to tell 
more than that they belonged to some large animal. 

“It might be a bear,” suggested Maggie, coming 
over too and stooping down to look at them ; “ but I 
don’t think bears come about here at this time of 
year; later on they’re seen, and killed too, some- 
times; but father says, nothing like what they used 
to be.” 

“ Well, it ’s some large animal, ” he said ; “ but that 
seems about all we can tell; the tracks may be old, 
but somehow they don’t strike me so. However, we 
sha’n’t find out any more by looking at them, so I 


I I 2 


The Golden Crocodile. 


suppose we’d better make another start, hadn’t 
we?” 

The high, rugged masses of projecting rocks were 
already casting dark shadows as they approached the 
spot where the horses had been left, tied to the 
gnarled trunk of an ancient cedar. The two were 
moving leisurely along, laughing at an occasional 
trip or stumble in the gathering dusk. 

“This is the last of the very rough ground, and I 
think you must be glad of it,” he said as he helped 
her down on to the little stretch of level near the 
point. “We shall soon be on the trail again now. 
The ponies must have begun to think we ’ve for- 
gotten them and gone another way. I wonder 
what a poor brute would do if it had been left 
tied up, and the man happened to fall over some- 
where and — ” 

The rest of his sentence was cut short by a strange, 
unearthly sound suddenly breaking on their ears, — 
a confusion of neighing, snorting, and stamping, 
coming from the direction of their horses, now 
scarcely a hundred yards farther on round the point 
ahead. They both stood still for a moment, intently 
listening. He was on the point of saying some- 
thing, when in place of the snorting there came that 
weird, piercing sound, the terror-stricken horse gives 
when attacked by some wild animal. 

“Something’s the matter with the horses. Do 
you think you can come any faster?” he cried. 

Maggie, flushed and pale by turns, responded at 


A Quiet L,ittle Girl Aroused. 


1 1 3 


once as he grasped her hand; and, hurrying over the 
ground between, they quickly turned the corner 
which had before shut off the horses from their 
view. 

A sight met their eyes which sent a thrill right 
through them both. Lying on the ground, stretched 
out full length, as if stunned or dead, was the pony; 
a huge puma — mountain lion the people called 
them here — making frantic rushes at it between 
the furious kickings and stampings of the pony’s 
terrified companion; which was plainly fearful that 
attack upon itself might come at any moment ; 
though the puma seemed contented with the smaller, 
weaker one, if it could only not be interfered 
with. 

The color had already left poor Maggie’s cheeks, 
the weird, horrible sounds had been enough for that, 
even before she knew what it was. They stood 
completely spellbound. The growling of the angry 
beast was growing to a roar, as the other horse’s 
kicking and plunging still kept it from its victim; 
although the scent of blood coming to it from the 
poor brute stricken down had added to the keenness 
of its appetite. 

The creature’s sense of smell must now have 
warned it that some human beings were at hand, 
for suddenly throwing up its head it sniffed the air; 
and looked round with a quick, searching glance. 
The sight of human beings, as its glaring eyes fell 
on them, seemed to make it only the more furious, 

8 


The Golden Crocodile. 


”4 

and, as if in challenge, it advanced some steps towards 
where the two were standing, lashing out its tail 
from side to side and with a bold, defiant look as if 
daring any one to interfere. 

The brute stood glaring and snarling, but not 
advancing any more, when suddenly the prostrate 
pony moved as if recovering from a stunning shock, 
and, raising its head, made as if to get up on 
its feet. The noise of the moving made the puma 
turn its head; then, suddenly, as if a thought had 
seized it that its prey might yet escape, it sprang 
again back upon it, the other horse’s kicking having 
for the moment ceased. 

Singleton stood, revolver in one hand, for this 
weapon he had luckily brought with him as men 
often did when out on horseback, in case they 
might see a hare or rabbit; his other hand was 
grasping Maggie’s arm. Whether to fire or not 
he hesitated for a moment. There might be danger 
if the brute were only wounded, though had he 
been alone of course that would not have stopped 
him. What should he do? But just then some- 
thing happened. 

Suddenly, and without any warning even, roused 
perhaps to a pitch of feeling beyond restraint by the 
sight of what the brute was doing to her pet, a pas- 
sionate cry burst from Maggie’s lips, and in a 
moment she had snatched the revolver from his 
hand, and was rushing across the intervening space 
of forty yards, while her companion, whose breath 


A §>uiet Little Girl Aroused . 1 1 5 

had been taken away by the suddenness of her move- 
ments, was rushing after her. 

Then another strange thing happened. The 
action was perhaps so unexpected and so startling 
to the puma that a sudden fear now seemed to seize 
it. With a sulky roar it bounded from its victim 
towards some rocks above, and a few yards distant, 
from which point of vantage it had no doubt first 
sprung upon the pony’s back. 

Bang ! went the weapon in her hand, as the beast 
was climbing up, and then she stopped, standing 
there flushed and breathless, trembling from head 
to foot with excitement. 

Rushing to her side, he caught the weapon from 
her hand. “ For God’s sake, give it to me ! You ’d 
better not have fired at all,” he almost shouted. 

But she was too much excited to understand what 
he was saying. The angry beast was crouching out 
of sight on the rocks above, growling and making 
hideous sounds of pain and anger mixed. It might 
spring down upon them in a moment. 

“ Come back ! Come away from under the ledge,” 
he cried, hurrying her a dozen or more paces off. 
They waited breathlessly, only listening intently 
for any guidance to its movements. But gradually 
the sounds of growls were turned to moans, and 
then, becoming faint and fainter as if it were mov- 
ing off, at last they died away. 

“ Gone ! ” he said, at last breaking the silence, 
during which they had both been watching with 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 16 

straining eyes through the dusk, the rocks above over 
which it had disappeared, and then he turned towards 
her with a look upon his face of mingled glowing 
admiration and assumption of reproof. 

“By Jove!” he burst out, “I really don’t know 
what to say to you ! I ought to be very angry with 
you and — ” 

“I know — I know; it was very foolish. I can’t 
tell what made me do it. It was seeing the poor 
pony,” she interrupted him, in a nervous, agitated 
voice, almost with tears in her eyes; for now that 
the crisis was past her woman’s nature had asserted 
itself, rather than when the danger was right before 
them. But she recovered her composure presently, 
and her heart was aching now for her pet, as they 
both examined it. 

“ I ’m afraid it ’s badly torn just on the haunches; 
but perhaps it isn’t serious, as it seems able to 
walk,” he said, consolingly; “I don’t think the 
brute had time enough ; but if we ’d been five minutes 
later that would have been the end of Brownie, I ’m 
afraid. Let me put your saddle on the other horse, 
and I ’ll lead the pony, won’t you ? ” 

“Poor old Brownie,” she said, tenderly strok- 
ing the nose of the still rather dazed animal, “that 
nasty beast wanted to kill you, didn’t it?” and 
then breaking into a little nervous laugh of glad- 
ness as they started homewards, on seeing how well 
it could walk in spite of what it had just gone 
through. 


A Quiet Little Girl Aroused. 1 1 7 

It was a striking contrast to the adventure of only 
a few hours before, to be sitting outside that evening 
in the moonlight after getting home again. 

There was much excitement amongst the work- 
people on the place during the evening; first one and 
then another coming round to where the little party 
were, to ask about it; and when Singleton de- 
scribed what had happened all over again each 
time, the old man’s eyes sparkled with pride as he 
listened, stroking Maggie’s cheek, she herself each 
time laughingly disclaiming any credit whatever 
being given her for courage. 

“I’m quite sure I was trembling all over,” she 
insisted. “ I can’t think what made me do it. I 
know it was foolish. Something seemed to seize 
me, and I couldn’t stop.” 

“ I ’m afraid you thought I was taking too long to 
do something to help your pony; wasn’t that really 
it?” suggested Singleton, smiling. 

“It ’s very unkind of you to keep on saying that; 
of course I never thought of such a thing.” 

“You ought to have known, Maggie,” said the 
old man, “that it wasn’t safe to leave horses tied up 
over near the caves; you ought to have told Mr. 
Singleton. That steep side has always been a bad 
place for mountain lions, there are so many hiding- 
places in the rocks.” 

“Yes, I know, father; but I didn’t think there 
would be any danger at this time of year.” 

“Well, there isn’t generally. I suppose it must 


1 1 8 


The Golden Crocodile . 


be the sheep that are over there now have brought 
them about. I ’d better tell the men to send word 
to the herder in the morning to look out for this 
one,” and the old man toddled off through the 
house towards the back for that purpose. 


CHAPTER VI. 


A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 

I T was getting dusk on the evening of the second 
day after the adventure with the puma, as a 
buggy, drawn by a weary looking pair of horses, 
and in which two men were seated, pulled up at a 
point where, after crossing a rushing stream, the 
rough mountain road they were on turned suddenly 
aside and began making a steep ascent. Right 
ahead of them, in the direction they had up to this 
moment been going, any further progress seemed to 
be as completely barred as though a wall a thousand 
feet in height stood in their way. 

The two men were Singleton and his older 
partner, who were now once more nearing the 
Grizzly Gamp, having left the old bishop’s place 
yesterday about midday. There was a great change 
in Singleton’s appearance since we saw him last 
down there with only the agreeable occupation of 
helping two girls to amuse themselves. So com- 
plete indeed was the transformation that more than 
a passing glance was needed to realize that this was 
the same individual. 

The lounge tweed suit and starched linen, the 
latter the work of the Chinese laundryman at 


I 20 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Glorietta, had given place to the comfortable, rough, 
knockabout costume of the mining camp. 

Behold, therefore, the same person we have had 
before us down there transformed outwardly into a 
miner by a blue flannel shirt, over which he wears, 
unbuttoned, a loose coat of hard brown canvas, but 
lined inside with something soft, trousers the same 
material as the coat, boots heavy and long, the 
whole topped with a wide slouch hat. There was 
nothing poetical in the picture, a little touch of the 
conventional brigand perhaps, though running more 
to the make-up of the western train-robber; but it 
was getting almost too dark to see clearly, the spot 
they were at was so shut in. 

They had been debating about something, and the 
elder partner had just got down, and had been 
examining some wheel-tracks not many yards ahead 
of them. Coming back, he announced the result of 
his observations. 

“ There is teams, still coming through the canyon, 
Doctor; the water must be low enough; these tracks 
is fresh. What do you say, shall we take the short 
cut through the canyon, or turn off over the hill? 
It ’s a big saving in distance this way; and getting 
down into the Hollow in the dark on the upper end 
of the hill road’ll be pretty nigh as bad as facing 
the short cut.” 

“I don’t care; do just as you think best,” his 
companion replied, with an air of almost complete in- 
difference; for, to tell the truth, Singleton’s thoughts 


A Difference of Opinion . 


i 21 


were now — though for the matter of that they had 
been most of the way up as well — running on the 
jolly time he had been having lately, and the bit of 
luck, as he considered, in making the old bishop’s 
acquaintance. He would certainly drop down there 
again in a month or so ; there was no sense in stick- 
ing so close to the camp as he had been doing here- 
tofore. It was a mistake. An occasional change 
did a man a world of good. 

His thoughts were running along pleasantly enough 
in this way, when presently they were disturbed by 
the grinding of the wheels on stones and the splash- 
ing of the horses’ feet in water; and as he brought 
his mind from the realms of fancy to his immediate 
surroundings, he saw they were now entering a huge 
rift in the dark face of the mountain right ahead. 
They were in fact passing into the lower entrance 
of the canyon of the Roaring Fork; the way out the 
stream had cut for itself through the rim of the old 
crater from Grizzly Hollow above. Gradually, as 
they proceeded, the walls rose higher and higher; 
and the fast diminishing light, now came only from 
a narrow streak of sky far overhead; the canyon 
sides in places coming so close together at the 
bottom where they were that the stream occupied all 
the space, and they had to travel in the very bed of 
it. Singleton had never been through here before. 
This short cut to the camp was passable only at 
very low water for a few weeks ; and was then used 
occasionally by teamsters bringing down ore from 


122 


The Golden Crocodile . 


the mines; light vehicles such as the one they now 
had hardly ever came this way. 

The darkness became almost intense; the only 
thing to guide them being the streak of light 
from overhead shining here and there upon the 
water. Still the weary horses plodded on, splashing 
through the stream at each new turn in the winding 
passage. 

“ Don’t you think,” suggested Singleton, breaking 
a long spell of silence, “ it would be a good idea to 
light the lantern? — and I’ll walk ahead with it. 
The horses seem to be getting slower and slower. It 
looks as if they’d never been through here before, 
and don’t quite understand what ’s going on. It ’ll 
encourage them a little, and I ’m awfully stiff from 
sitting still so long; my legs want stretching a bit. 
I had no idea it was so frightfully dark as it is 
through here.” 

“ They ’ll get accustomed to it soon, Doctor; but 
the lantern won’t hurt, anyway, if you ’d like to 
walk. Here you are; here it is,” he said, producing 
from a box under the seat an old lantern they always 
carried in case of coming to a bit of bad mountain 
road at night. 

Singleton took it, and getting down walked on 
ahead, wading sometimes in the shallow water; and, 
as he had predicted, it cheered the tired beasts, for 
horses like to know what their goal ahead is. They 
moved slowly on through the deep dense gloom, 
broken only by the flashing of the light upon the 


A Difference of Opinion . 


123 


canyon walls. Once it lit up the bearer’s face, and 
if his partner had been watching at the moment he 
might have seen there a change expressing outwardly 
a complete revolution in the subject of his thoughts 
which the last half hour had brought with it. 

“I’m almost sorry we came this way,” he said, 
speaking to himself, after some little time had 
passed. “ It gives one such a weird, dismal feeling, 
being shut in between these walls.” He was not of 
a nervous disposition, far from it. But his thoughts, 
as he walked alone, and in that dark, gloomy place 
through which he had never been before; had sud- 
denly gone back to that terrible experience of some 
months ago. 

For many days after that event he had brooded 
over it; and, when it was still a matter of recent 
occurrence, questioning in his mind at times as to 
whether he had done all that was possible for 
him to, to prevent the crime; again at other times 
feeling quite satisfied. He had pleaded, he had 
protested; and when all had failed, he had been 
bound to absolute silence by the circumstances, 
and gradually it had become as a thing of the past. 
But the knowledge, as he walked just now alone; 
that somewhere on the jagged heights right above 
him here the body must be lying, caused a strange 
eerie sensation to come creeping over him ; for even 
the bravest man in battle is not free from a dread 
of the mysterious, the unknowable of darkness. 

Not a word that he had heard, had ever been said 


124 


The Golden Crocodile . 


in the camp about the Stimson affair. In that life 
people seldom asked questions. The man had dis- 
appeared — that was all ; but why or how was no 
one’s business to explain, nor indeed had any person 
shown a disposition to inquire; although no doubt 
in some secret circles a few confidences may have 
been, exchanged. For weeks following the event, 
Singleton had not gone near the camp again; but, as 
time passed by, he began to take a somewhat philo- 
sophic view of the affair, and to argue with himself 
that after all this was the life he was amidst, these 
other men did not look at it in the same light he 
did. So, one afternoon when his ideas had become 
more settled on the subject, he had ridden into the 
little town for the first time since. He fully ex- 
pected that Davis would have taken him aside and 
made some quiet remarks about the affair, and he 
preferred to let him speak first about it. But 
Singleton’s inexperience quite misled him here. 
There was not a sign in the storekeeper’s manner 
that he had the remotest recollection of anything 
unusual having happened lately. There was only 
the ordinary gossip about the various mines, and 
how they were looking. They were alone for some 
time, too, so that there was plenty of opportunity 
for a confidential conversation. 

From this silence on Davis’s part, he drew the con- 
clusion that it was not considered advisable to refer 
to the matter again, even quietly, and he recalled 
the cautious remarks of this man on that night 


A Difference of Opinion. 125 

when they were sitting in his office: “ Walls is thin 
in these buildings, and there’s always some sneaks 
in every camp, men as you ’d never think of, maybe.” 
Perhaps it was wise to keep silence ; the thing was 
done, it was past; talking about it would change 
nothing. So the matter gradually passed from his 
mind, and became as merely a vision. Indeed, he 
sometimes felt as if it really had been, only a horri- 
ble dream. 

But the coming through here in the dark, had sud- 
denly revived with full force, the whole thing in his 
mind. He stumbled on, and, presently, as one 
often does when walking and thinking at the self- 
same time, found he had altogether outstripped 
the horses, and they had fallen quite behind. He 
paused until they sounded nearer, and then went on, 
still thinking as he walked. How well now he 
could see the muffled figure sitting on the horse on 
those heights far up above, and could hear again the 
sound of the body falling! His feelings were be- 
coming painfully worked up, and more than once he 
had involuntarily perhaps, looked back to see how 
far behind the horses were. He could not, try his 
best though he did, keep that eerie feeling from 
creeping over him. Just then he turned a corner, 
when suddenly out of the inky darkness all around 
there came a ghastly, piercing scream which echoed 
and re-echoed between the vast dismal walls, and 
the same instant something dashed the lantern from 
his hand. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 26 

He gave a fearful start and stood stock-still. A 
horrible, uncanny feeling thrilled every fibre in his 
body; coming right upon nerves already overstrung, 
it was calculated to affect the stoutest mind. Then, 
presently, against the thin line of sky above he saw 
the startled night-hawk — for such it was — fluttering 
to another roost. 

There was no use going on now. He waited for 
his companion, and doubtless he was not sorry to 
have company again. 

“ It ’s a pretty tough place this, when you see it in 
daytime, Doctor/’ the older man remarked, presently, 
feeling a little more talkative as the end was near- 
ing. “ There’s not many worse than this I’ve 
known. When you’re in it, you’re just boxed. 
You can’t climb out anywhere, the walls is that 
steep, but see! it’s clearing; we’ll be out of it in 
another five minutes.” 

A streak of light in the hitherto nearly inky 
darkness ahead told the tale: and, with a comment of 
satisfaction from both men, the upper opening was 
reached, and the dark, dismal rift they had come 
through soon left behind. 

When Singleton turned into his own bed for the 
first time now for three weeks, he ought, after the 
weary journey of the day, to have gone to sleep at 
once, but he did not. 

His mind was kept persistently on the alert for 
half the night by a new current of thought on the 
Stimson tragedy; memories of which the incident of 


A Difference of Opinion. 


i 27 

the way up had so completely revived. And some- 
how now he seemed to regard the whole affair with 
an enlarged sense of horror; greater, indeed, than it 
had aroused even at the very time. Those pleasing 
reflections on the days he had been spending down 
below were for the time being forced out of sight 
altogether. 

Had he understood himself, he would have known 
the cause of this disturbance. He would have realized 
that it was merely because of the different kind of 
life he had been living for the past three weeks, and 
that in a few days the thing would no more worry 
him, the chances were, than it had a month ago, 
before he left the camp to go to Glorietta. But he 
was too young to be a philosopher, and, if there had 
been nothing to keep him, it is more than likely that 
Grizzly Hollow would have seen the last of Harry 
Singleton not many days later; the place had sud- 
denly become loathsome to him. But there was the 
mine. He had spent much on that; to go now 
would be to lose whatever chance there was of get- 
ting it back, and they might make the strike they 
had been expecting to at almost any moment. 

The entrance to the workings of the Silver Ledge 
mine was away up on the side of the mountain, far 
above the bottom of Grizzly Hollow, and no great 
distance from the summit of a high ridge separating 
the Hollow from a deep rugged ravine, into which 
a rapid descent was made after crossing the ridge. 
This ravine was known by the somewhat striking 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 28 

name of the Flaming Gorge, given it because of the 
peculiarly brilliant colors that the woods there had 
in autumn; supposed to be due to something, some 
mineral in the rocks they grew amongst. 

The Flaming Gorge was not merely a hollow, but 
a great deep valley, running parallel to the Roaring 
Fork Creek throughout the whole of the latter’s 
course, and until both of these valleys came abruptly 
to an end at the plain outside, at which point their 
respective entrances were some ten or more miles 
apart. 

Three miles below the spot where the Roaring 
Fork left the mountains in a final cascade lay the 
little town of Glorietta, and the reader may remem- 
ber that the old bishop’s house, standing a few 
miles out of the town, was within reach of the sound 
of the water in its final leap, — a sweet sound too in 
summer-time, in that dry, thirsty land. 

In Grizzly Hollow, on that side where the Silver 
Ledge mine lay, the mountain sloped abruptly up; 
and although this slope had in early days been 
densely clothed with noble pine-trees, — for they 
grew here to an enormous size, the place being so 
well sheltered from the wind, — all these had now 
been taken for the mines, and nothing but the gaunt 
dead stumps remained. 

It is necessary for the reader to properly under- 
stand these facts, especially as to the relative position 
of the Flaming Gorge and Grizzly Hollow, because 
very important after events centred hereabouts. 


A Difference of Opinion. 129 

The two men, Singleton and his old partner, who 
had been back now for nearly a month at Grizzly, 
were seated this morning at the table in the front- 
room of their little four-roomed log-cabin, — at least 
Singleton was seated at the table, but his partner’s 
chair was turned towards the blazing stove; and 
resting one elbow on the arm of the chair in which 
he was sitting well back, Joe Shelby seemed to be 
grasping the stem of his corncob pipe tightly, as if 
to brace himself to resist some argument his young 
companion was making. 

The expression on the older partner’s face just 
now was different from the one it at other times 
wore, — that one of almost perennial good-nature, 
though perhaps somewhat deficient in alertness, but 
a face you would be naturally inclined to trust the 
owner of, not for wit to any great extent possibly, 
but for truth. There was a stubborn look in the 
same face now, and the words falling from his com- 
panion were evidently connected with the look. 

As this is really the first opportunity that has 
presented itself for fairly introducing old Joe Shelby 
to the reader, it must be taken advantage of without 
any further delay. 

In age, Joe Shelby was a man of fifty-five or per- 
haps a year or two more; in appearance, not at all 
unlike the old bishop in the general expression of 
his face and features, a look of easy, good-natured 
contentment being common to both, and rather 
noticeable from being exceptional in the mining 
9 


i3° 


The Golden Crocodile . 


districts, where the look of eager, nervous expectancy 
was the prevailing type. 

But here their resemblance ceased, for the old 
bishop was seventy-five, while Shelby was twenty 
years younger, shorter in stature too, and had a 
grizzly beard, trimmed rather close, while the old 
bishop's was very long and almost white. 

Joe Shelby’s history was a long one, but little of 
it interests the reader, — a poor man’s son, born in 
Pennsylvania, he had gone to the golden West at 
sixteen, and had never been home since Shelby was 
a man who more than once could have drawn a check 
on a San Francisco bank for three or four hundred 
thousand dollars, but could no more keep money when 
he got it than fly ; still looking just as contented with- 
out it. Lucky enough in finding good ground in the 
old days when there was plenty of virgin country, 
lucky, too, in selling for big sums; but what could 
a man with a face like his do with money in a large 
city? 

He could tramp over the tops of the mountains 
and through the deserts, and knew just the best 
ground to prospect in, after he had been some years 
at it. Then came the first lucky strike. Four 
hundred thousand dollars he made; then an adjourn- 
ment to the big city. But Joe Shelby had n’t wit 
enough to compete with the sharp, black-coated, 
plug-hatted men of the town. It did not take them 
long to persuade him to bring his money on to the 
mining exchange, instead of letting it rot in a bank, 


A Difference of Opinion . 


T 3 X 

as they expressed themselves; and it did not take 
long either for Joe Shelby to learn the difference be- 
tween mining with a pick and shovel, and doing the 
same thing with a telegraph ticker and a steel pen. 

In a year’s time, Joe Shelby was off once more to 
the mountains with fifty dollars in his pocket, all 
he had left in the world, and a sack full of hand- 
somely printed mining share-certificates suspended 
from the pick thrown over his shoulder, the sackful 
worth about the paper they were printed on. 

Then some years later another strike, a smaller 
one this time, and much about the same story over 
again. 

The man was too artless in his nature ; it was in 
his constitution. God made him so, and he was the 
legitimate prey of others, according to the usages of 
civilization. 

Nobody robbed him; nobody stole his money; but 
they got it from him. The first experience he had 
had taught him just enough to make him want to try 
the second time, in the belief that he had caught on 
now to how it was he lost before. But the outcome 
in the end was the same. The sharp men he went 
amongst only changed the color of the fly before 
making their cast. 

No; there was no use denying it, Joe Shelby 
had not the wit to compete in such a struggle. The 
strange thing was, too, he never had a grudge against 
a living being. He seemed to be satisfied that it was 
just his bad luck whenever he tried the town life. 


1 3 2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Some ten years before, he had come to Grizzly 
Hollow with a few hundred dollars in his pocket, 
and started a mill for sawing lumber to sell in the 
then booming camp. To himself, he had vowed that 
mining for him was over; it was no good for him; 
and sticking to the sawing, he had managed to lay 
by quite a little hoard. The mill, which he had 
moved at various times as the best logs became 
scarce close at hand, was now situated about half 
way between Glorietta and the Hollow, not far back 
from the road, and he went down there himself about 
once a week to see that everything was going on all 
right. 

Harry Singleton had first come to the saw-mill, 
bringing a letter to its owner from a former mining 
associate whom he, Singleton, had met in San 
Francisco. 

“ You’ll find old Joe Shelby out in that country 
when you get there,” said the man, speaking to 
Singleton as he sat down to write the letter. “ Old 
Joe’s been rich more than once; but it didn’t do 
him any good. The boys got it all away from him. 
You try and find him, mind you do; you’ll like 
him, and he ’ll be glad to see you I know. I saved 
him making a big loss myself once; but, Lord, he 
had n’t gone round the corner before some one he 
didn’t know, got him on to some other lay, and it 
was gone just the same.” 

On getting to Glorietta, the climate of which 
place he had been advised to try after a year’s stay 




A Difference of Opinion . 133 

in California: at the doctor’s recommendation; on 
finding that he was not making as much progress 
as he had hoped to; he soon made his way to old 
Shelby’s saw-mill, and presented the letter which 
he had brought. 

The owner, who received him in a very friendly 
manner, seemed glad of an opportunity to recount 
some of his own personal reminiscences of days 
gone by, in the place his visitor had so lately com’e 
from, and invited Singleton to come and stay out 
there in the woods along with him, where, surely, if 
anywhere, the air would do him good. Volunteer- 
ing, moreover, as soon as he could stand the climb- 
ing, to put him in the way of getting some big 
game, elk or deer, in the neighboring higher moun- 
tains. This invitation Singleton was only too 
pleased to accept, and the two soon got to be on 
exceedingly friendly terms. 

During his stay in California, as already mentioned 
in an earlier chapter, Harry Singleton, more with 
the object of killing time, which hung somewhat 
heavily on the hands of a man forced by circum- 
stances to lay aside his studies, than with any idea 
of putting the knowledge to any use, had acquired a 
smattering of information from study about mining, 
and his interest in the subject was naturally in- 
creased by coming so near to where actual opera- 
tions were in daily progress. The stage running 
between Glorietta and the Grizzly Camp three times 
a week passed within only a few hundred yards of 


r 34 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Shelby’s house, and it was not long until Singleton 
had found his way by it into the camp above; in- 
deed, so frequent did his visits become that he spent 
nearly as much time there as at old Shelby’s. 

It was in the course of these visits Singleton had 
learned about the old abandoned Silver Ledge mine, 
and, to make a long story short, ended by persuading 
his host, in spite of the latter’s long-kept vow to not 
again engage in mining, to join him in re-exploring 
it. The old man cautiously stipulating, however, 
that he would only spend a certain sum, which need 
not, however, as he pointed out, deter Singleton 
from going on as long as he liked. In addition to 
this arrangement between them, they had also come 
to an understanding that in winter, when the Grizzly 
Camp was closed on account of the deep snow, they 
would move to the old bishop’s claim at Medicine 
Creek, about which claim the reader will remember 
their visit was at the time Singleton first made the 
acquaintance of the people at the ranch. 

It is hard to explain how the man of years and 
experience had allowed himself to be swayed by one 
so young, except that the older man’s mind had been 
lying fallow, and the enthusiasm of his youthful 
companion was rather contagious under the cir- 
cumstances. Had any experienced man come to 
old Shelby and talked about the same matter, he 
would, ten to one, have pooh-poohed the idea at 
once. 

Harry Singleton, on coming of age, had inherited 


A Difference of Opinion . 135 

the comfortable little fortune of four hundred a year, 
and, as the money was now within his own control, 
he had, upon making these arrangements, written 
home and realized a considerable share of it. Very 
much more, indeed, than his older partner had 
agreed to put into the venture ; but then it had been 
arranged that each should profit according to what 
money each provided. 

This then, in brief, is the story leading up to the 
relations between these two so strangely unlike in 
every respect. 

At the point where this diversion, by way of ex- 
planation to the reader, began, Singleton and his 
partner were sitting in the cabin; Singleton at the 
table quoting from some account-books lying before 
him, and his old partner in front of the blazing stove, 
into which he was staring, while puffing away at his 
corncob pipe. There was an unwonted look of 
stubbornness on the elder man’s features, and he was 
evidently bracing himself to resist some arguments 
every now and then addressed to him by his com- 
panion. What is the conversation about? Old 
Shelby was speaking now. 

“No, Doctor, it ’s no use talking,” he was saying, 
“if you was to talk all day it wouldn’t make me 
change my mind. I said I ’d spend so much, and 
I ’ve spent more than that already. I ’m just going 
to stop right now, and so ought you, though that 
ain’t no business of mine. The old mine ’s bin too 
well gutted, and though I did feel kind of enthused 


The Golden Crocodile. 


136 

at startin’, the way you figured it out from going by 
the books you ’d been studying; still you see it never 
come off. We’ve spent all this money, and you lots 
more’n I have, and when we’d spent five times as 
much, if we had the money to, likely we’d be just 
as near to some more of them big pockets as we are 
now. This here’s mining all over — this little ex- 
perience. You an’ me sits in our cabin and we puts 
it all down on paper. There’s that ledge, we says, 
she’s bin agoin’ so many ounces, an’ she’ll keep it 
up steady that way for ever; so we draws a plan 
showing how the ledge, where we ain’t found it yet, 
ought to be there, must be there, we says to our- 
selves. But the trouble is it don’t always come just 
as we fix it ought to. I ’ll stand by my agreement 
with you, Doctor, and if you want me to I ’ll join 
you this winter down on the bishop’s claim at 
Medicine Creek. There now I do believe is some- 
thing; but no more of the Silver Ledge for me when 
these contracts with the men is run out next month, 
as they will be. There ’s only the one point I ever 
see any good in in this old Silver Ledge, and that ’s 
that stuff in the big vein what them first owners 
paid no attention to. Whatever did you do with 
them assays you got made of it, Doctor?” 

“ Oh, it ’s no use trying to do anything with that,” 
he replied despondently; for the determined resist- 
ance of his partner had had a depressing effect upon 
him; he was beginning to realize that there was 
truth in what the more experienced miner had said. 


A Difference of Opinion . 137 

“The assays are all in my desk somewhere, but 
it’s no use. I sent some of the stuff to San 
Francisco, and some to Germany even, but it would 
cost more to get the gold out than the result would 
be worth ; there are still some bags of it outside in 
the wood-shed.” 

“Couldn’t do nothing with it, eh? Ain’t worth 
nothing. There ’s a million dollars in that vein if 
some of them smart fellows could tell us how to get 
that out.” 

“Yes, and there’s a good many billion dollars in 
sea-water too, if we knew how to get it out of that : 
one ’s about as likely as the other,” he said, rather 
sarcastically. 

“Then you don’t think anything more’ll ever 
come of that, I see. What did that man Stimson 
ever do with them bags you gave him that time? 
He was a pretty smart one, I thought. Didn’t 
you never hear from him after he left ? Left pretty 
sudden, too, I heard in camp; got a chance to buy 
the kind of mine he was after up north somewhere, 
and went right after it.” 

The blood rushed into Harry Singleton’s face; 
but his partner did not see that the question had 
disturbed him, he was still staring steadily at the 
fire. 

Singleton said something a little hurriedly about 
never having heard anything from him. 

“Well, then, this is how I understand things, 
Doctor,” went on Shelby, after various matters had 


The Golden Crocodile. 


138 

been discussed: “them men ’s all paid to the end of 
the month, and then I ’m out of it; and if you ’ll take 
my tip, just give yourself a rest on it too, take some 
time to think it over; the mine won’t run away. If 
anything’s there now, it’ll be there next summer 
still, and you can have another whack at it then, if 
you feel that way. You ’d have to shut down from 
the snow in two months’ time, anyhow. Now what 
you’d ought to do is to come down with me to 
Glorietta, when I go next week, as I ’ve made up my 
mind to make that trip back to my old home I ’ve 
been thinking of for ten years, an’ when you get 
away from here, digging a hole in the side of a 
mountain won’t look to be the only fun in the 
world.” 

Although he had not been successful in persuad- 
ing his old partner to go with him any further in 
the adventure, there was sufficient stubbornness in 
Singleton’s character to determine him in going on 
alone. He had become infected with the idea that 
it was only a question of time until he must be suc- 
cessful, and in mental visions he pictured the men 
rushing in any day from the workings announcing 
that the blow of a pick had suddenly laid bare a 
great mass of clear, bright, beautiful silver; many 
before him have gone through the same, and many 
will after, until the end. 

But the last remark of his companion contained 
a suggestion, an idea, which had not before oc- 
curred to him, perhaps because he had become so 


A Difference of Opinion . 


*39 


absorbed in the mental visions as above. “Why 
not let it rest until next summer; the mine’ll be 
there still, it won’t run away.” That had been old 
Shelby’s suggestion ; and to Singleton, as he heard 
it, it brought the thought that, after all, the delay 
would give him an opportunity to study the subject, 
and that next summer he might come back better 
equipped with information. 

The outcome of these reflections was that he 
determined to go down next week to Glorietta, with 
his partner, in which case he would not return to 
Grizzly Hollow until next summer. 


CHAPTER VII. 


A CLOSE SHAVE. 


HEN the day for departure had come the 



* V weather gave signs of a thunderstorm brew- 
ing; heavy clouds hung round the higher peaks and 
there were distant rumblings; so threatening was it 
indeed at breakfast-time, that there was a debate 
for a little while as to the advisability of a postpone- 
ment until the morrow. In that country rain so 
seldom falls that the inhabitants regard it with 
peculiar dislike, when they are travelling in the 
mountains ; as it often makes the rough roads there 
temporarily impassable in places. But signs of its 
clearing up appeared, and as the elder partner was 
really anxious to get away, finally a start was made. 

Down in the camp there were some business 
matters to be settled with Parker, Davis’s partner at 
the store, — Davis himself being away just now, — 
and at other places as well, which took up several 
hours, so that it was eleven o’clock before they were 
once more ready. 

“ Whichever of you ’s going to ride the mare had 
better keep your rubber coat out,” suggested the 
storekeeper as he stood at the door, watching the 
final preparations. “It’ll be all right for the one 


A Close Shave . 


141 

under the cover of the buggy ; but it ’s my belief this 
rain's bound to come before it clears off; you’ll 
catch it somewhere on the road down. Seems to be 
getting thicker too right now,” and, as he spoke, he 
glanced up at the gloomy, threatening canopy gather- 
ing overhead. 

“That ’ll be all right; the Doctor’s going to ride 
the mare,” said Shelby; “but if rain comes, why he 
can get inside too, and we ’ll lead the mare behind. 
I’m all ready now, Doctor, if you are,” he added, 
looking towards his partner, who stood near by. 

“You go on, I ’ll wait for the stage. It ought to 
be here in about ten minutes, oughtn’t it, Parker? 
I can easily catch you up. There may be some- 
thing for me.” 

“All right then,” and old Shelby had just touched 
up the horses in the buggy and gone a few yards, 
when Parker came running out of the store and 
called after him. 

“Say, Joe, here’s a little fellow from a woodcut- 
ters’ camp about ten miles down the river, and he ’s 
lost his horse; got loose and ran home. Would n’t 
you give him a lift with you ? He ’s got some small 
stores to take along.” 

“Why, certainly,” he replied promptly, and stop- 
ping the horses; “come along, my little man, where’s 
your stores ? Put ’em in at the back. That ’s right. 
You come up here in front. All in now? Good- 
bye again, Parker,” and he was gone. 

“What’s he going over the bridge for?” asked 


142 


The Golden Crocodile. 


the storekeeper, turning to Singleton as they both 
stood for a few moments watching the buggy. 

“ He said he ’d take the short cut through the can- 
yon as it ’s so late; but I ’m going round by the road 
myself. I ’ve been through there once, and I ’d 
rather go a longer distance than do it again. ” 

The stage was not quite so punctual in its arrival 
as some one had predicted, but it came in at last. 

“ You’re a little late to-day, Bob,” remarked the 
storekeeper, as the conveyance drew up in front. 
“How was the weather down below; any rain at 
Glorietta yesterday? ” 

“ Rained like blazes,” replied the youth, laconi- 
cally, “and we ’re going to catch it here right away; 
I’m off to the barn,” and even as he spoke the 
dark, heavy-looking clouds overhead were re-forming 
rapidly as if for one more determined effort ; a bright 
flash of lightning came, quickly followed by the 
thunder, and down poured the rain, almost in buckets- 
ful, it seemed; but for one half-minute only, and 
then it ceased. 

In the Hollow the air was motionless, but far 
overhead the clouds were scurrying along before a 
tempest. Suddenly the clouds up there began to 
gather in a black, twisting, whirling mass, as though 
two opposing tempests had now met. Another 
blinding flash, far worse than that before, and a 
thunder clap so terrific, and following so quickly 
that the two were almost simultaneous. Every tim- 
ber in the wooden store-building rattled from the 


A Close Shave. 


H3 


shock; it almost seemed as if the lightning bolt had 
fallen somewhere in the little town — had struck 
some building there. 

Rain, in bucketsful, came down again for several 
minutes; the storm then quickly passing over the 
divide towards the neighboring peaks to northward. 

“ That last flash seemed as though it was trying to 
knock the bottom out of the old Hollow; but I guess 
it ’s all over now for to-day,” remarked Parker, ad- 
dressing the little crowd who had gathered, as usual, 
about mail time, and had now moved outside as the 
rain had ceased. 

“ There’s the telephone inside ringing,” called 
out some one to the storekeeper. The bell was ring- 
ing furiously. 

This was a connection between the store and 
several mines high up on the sides of the Hollow 
to save climbing up and down with orders for the 
store and inquiries about letters. 

Parker went back to see who it was. 

“ Holloa, this is the store,” he said, speaking into 
the instrument, and then going on again, without 
waiting for the person at the other end, as if he knew 
who it must be calling. “ What are you twisting the 
wires like that for, Henry? How are you? Good- 
morning ; how ’s the Meteor looking to-day ? Struck 
something rich all of a sudden, have you, and want 
to let your old friend Parker know it first? Well, 
what is it, Henry?” 

The reply came quick. “ No ; we ain't struck noth- 


144 


The Golden Crocodile. 


ing up here; but, my God, there's something going 
to strike you all down on the bottom pretty soon. 
There ’s a cloud-burst fallen over in Dry Gulch. 
We can see it from up here across the Hollow; it ’s 
tearing down the trees and roarin’ like mad. Looks 
as though it was cornin’ down ten feet high.” 

Parker replied with a strong exclamation, and 
then laughed. “Much obliged to yer, Henry; but 
I guess we ’re all right here in the town. I was 
here six years ago, when the last ’un came. Could n’t 
reach us here. But I ’ll go out and tell the boys to 
lookout. Thank yer; good-bye.” 

The storekeeper went to the front again, and 
reported what he had just heard to the little knot of 
men. The news was received with a chorus of loud, 
and many of them rather forcible, expressions. 

“But we’re all right in the town,” added several; 
“we ’re well above it here,” and one or two of them 
began to narrate reminiscences of the last cloud-burst 
which had fallen here some six or seven years ago, 
when the bridge over the river was carried away by 
it as well as other smaller bridges further down ; and 
they described, too, how the water had not reached 
to even the lower end of the little street they were 
now in. 

“ It did n’t rise more ’n ten foot here at the bridge,” 
one said; “but down in the canyon, up on the sides, 
she marked thirty, aye, an’ forty foot, too, in places. 
Let’s go down to the bridge, boys,” added the 
speaker, “and see her rip.” 


A Close Shave. 


*45 

These, and other remarks as well, were rapidly 
made; only a minute or two had passed since Parker 
came back from the telephone with the news, and 
there had been nothing, so far, in the attitude of 
any one present to suggest that the information was 
of any special import beyond the interest which an 
occurrence of the kind would naturally arouse in 
such a gathering and place; whether the bridge 
would stand seemed to be the only thing, so far, 
that any one had thought about. 

But now there came a sudden change over the 
group of rough-costumed men, with their hard- 
bronzed features, standing there, discussing some- 
thing a little eagerly, but not in any way excitedly. 
Some words were said, and a chorus of voices almost 
yelled a question as they heard those words, while 
a look of painful anxiety and distress instantly filled 
each face, hard-featured men though some of those 
present were. Instantly some started and ran down 
the little street to a point where the houses ended, 
leaving a clear view towards the canyon’s mouth, 
something over a mile away, as though they had 
some idea in their minds that the man they were 
thinking of might not yet have passed into it ; but 
he had gone into the death-trap fifteen minutes or 
more ago. 

Singleton had been standing by listening to the 
comments which the news Parker had brought back 
from the telephone had promptly drawn from those 
outside, and then, having already got the letters which 


IO 


146 


The Golden Crocodile . 


he had waited for, was on the very point of moving 
towards his horse, tied to a verandah post some paces 
off, uncertain whether he would start at once or go 
down with the others and watch the bridge for a 
little while, when those words of one of the speakers, 
just now recorded, suddenly arrested his attention, 
and sent a whirl of mingled feelings rushing through 
him. “ Down in the canyon she marked thirty feet, 
aye, and forty feet, too,” the words fell upon his ears 
like a death knell; for, up to this moment, somehow, 
he had quite overlooked the terrible significance of 
the occurrence in connection with the route his old 
partner had taken; though, after all, up to this time, 
not many minutes had passed since the news first 
came; the storekeeper Parker, too, although he saw 
which way old Shelby drove on leaving, had so far 
seemed quite undisturbed. But as those words about 
the canyon dropped from the speaker’s lips, Single- 
ton started violently, and they evidently startled 
Parker too. The two men looked at each other 
quickly. 

“ My God! he must be in it now; it’ll catch him 
right in there ! ” groaned the storekeeper, his face 
showing signs of distress. 

“ What’s that?” cried the bystanders, who had 
quickly caught on, from the words and looks of the 
two who knew, that something or some one was in 
danger. 

“Joe Shelby down in the canyon now!” they 
fairly yelled, as they learned the facts. “ My God ! 


A Close Shave. 


I 47 


why there ain’t a dozen places all the way through 
any man can save himself, even if he know’d it was 
a-comin’.” 

Intense excitement now stirred the little crowd, 
sympathizing exclamations following one another in 
rapid succession. 

“Poor old Shelby, — poor old Joe Shelby !” 

“ Always had a dollar to lend a man that was hard 
up, or *ud try and find him a job somewhere. Paid 
his men, too, square on the nail, just whenever their 
wages was due.” 

“ Hang it, boys ! ” cried out one man who refused 
to take a despondent view of the situation, — “ hanged 
if I think God ’s going to drown old Joe Shelby just 
like a rat; ’tain’t right.” 

But the others only shook their heads; there was 
little response to the more cheerful view, the help- 
lessness of the situation, the impossibility of render- 
ing him any assistance, — * that was the melancholy 
part of it ; it was that depressed them. 

Singleton had rushed over to his mare and sprung 
upon her back ; his face was deathly pale. “ Give 
me a whip from the store, one of you, quick ! ” he 
cried hoarsely, and some one rushed inside to get it. 

The little crowd stared for a moment, then sud- 
denly realized what his actions meant. 

“You ’re mad, Doctor,” came from a dozen throats 
at once. “ You ’ 11 never reach him in time. There ’ 11 
only be three drowned instead, maybe, of two. 
There ’s just a chance for him ahead; for he ’ll hear 


148 


The Golden Crocodile . 


the noise, and p’raps guess what y s coming. May get 
out in time if he ’s near a place. But you can’t help 
him. No one can help him; he ’s too far on.” 

“It’s all foolishness; it’s madness, you going. 
Don’t let him go, boys. Don’t give him the whip,” 
and there was a little rush as if to stop him, as if to 
seize the bridle. 

But his movements were too quick, his feelings 
too much aroused, for him to heed what they were 
saying. 

“ I may be in time yet to let him know. He ’d do 
the same for me. Give me the whip, quick!” and 
snatching it from the hand of the one who had run 
in for it, he brought the lash down with a crack on 
the mare’s flank with such suddenness that she had 
bounded, in an instant, beyond the reach of those 
who, acting on the impulse, had thought to prevent 
what they knew was utter recklessness, and he was 
off. 

The little crowd, in spite of the melancholy situa- 
tion, could not resist the natural impulse, and, see- 
ing he was gone, ran down the street to watch him 
as far as they could, and waving their hats to relieve 
their feelings. 

“Gosh ! if I ’d ’a’ had a horse I ’d have gone with 
him too,” cried several, as they stood watching the 
rapidly-diminishing figures of horse and rider. 

The mare was startled at the strangeness of the 
way the whip had fallen on her; for she was a will- 
ing little beast, and never needed to be brought in 


A Close Shave . 


H9 

that way to do her best. But she could n't guess the 
agitation of her rider. 

Soon the little town was dropping well behind, 
and now the mouth of the canyon loomed up right in 
front; they were nearly at the dark, dismal gorge into 
which the river disappeared ; one minute more and it 
was reached. One second he paused, drew rein, and 
looked behind him, while the heaving flanks beneath 
him quickly rose and fell, and the mare, fairly excited 
now, moved restlessly, wanting to be off again. 

Nothing interrupted the view along the river 
banks; in the distance he could distinguish the 
people now crowded on the bridge as if watching 
for the fearful coming wave. Suddenly there was a 
commotion ; a rushing off ; what that must mean he 
guessed ; the roaring tide was nearly there. 

“ Only one mile ahead of it," he muttered through 
his tight-set teeth, and he knew too well how little 
that meant in a race with a wall of water tearing 
down the frightful steep of a mountain stream. 

Turning, he gripped the saddle with his knees, let 
slack the tightened rein once more, and dashed in 
through the canyon’s mouth; one minute more, and 
from the winding of the stream all view of the out- 
side world was gone, save only the streak of light 
far overhead. 

The time for planning had, indeed, been short; 
but he understood just what the chances were, and 
that at only some few places in the gloomy, winding 
passage could escape be made. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 S° 

On, on he pushed. “ Another five minutes gone,” 
he whispered to himself; “it must be in the canyon 
now.” Almost he fancied, now, that he could hear 
the roar. He stopped and listened for one second. 
No, he was mistaken. 

And now the walls were so closed in, that his 
path lay right along the river bed. The poor mare 
tripped and stumbled; struggling hard to do her 
very best; but his progress was only slow, — fear- 
fully slow, he felt it was so. He shouted, think- 
ing that the cry might reach those on ahead and 
make them stop, but only the echoing of his voice 
came rumbling back. 

Just then he passed a place where escape would be 
easy. Should he risk going any further? he asked 
himself the question hurriedly. Yes, he' would; 
there was another bend not far ahead; they might 
be just round that, and he could warn them back; but 
when he reached it, only vacant gloom continued. 

And now he began to realize, for the first time, 
the danger to himself ; the truth of what those men 
up at the store had said, that three lives instead of 
two might be lost. A flood of thoughts came rush- 
ing through his mind ; but still, foolhardy though it 
might have been, he felt that he had done no more 
than what the old man would have done for him. 
He drew the rein and paused once more for just a 
moment; his heart was beating fast. He listened, 
and as he did his face turned deadly pale. This time 
a sound, an awful note of warning, reached his ear 


A Close Shave. 


l S l 

above the rapid beating of his own pulses and the 
quick panting of the mare. There was no mistaking 
now; a dull, distant roaring, as if right overhead; 
but that was the echoing only from behind, not as 
yet maddeningly loud, there was no doubting what 
it meant. The tidal wave was now within the 
walls, and coming on with racehorse speed along 
the frightful steep of the bottom. 

How anxiously, how hurriedly, he turned his eyes 
from side to side at each fresh bend he came round, 
searching for some break in the walls, — only the 
very smallest ledge would do ; but the smooth steep 
face only seemed to mock him. For minutes past 
— they seemed like hours to the rider — the mare’s 
pace had been slowly slackening, until now it barely 
reached a trot; the rocky river bed had well-nigh 
worn her out. 

And now the roar behind began to plainly reach 
his ear, above the striking of the horse’s feet 
upon the stony bottom; louder and louder it was 
growing every instant; a helpless, hopeless feeling 
seized him ; nearer and nearer came the awful roar- 
ing; he even felt a movement in the very air, caused 
by the coming rush. One more bend, not many 
yards ahead. He turned the corner, straining with 
fearful eagerness his sight, in search of the needed 
haven, his last hope now, — no time to turn another 
bend. Death was right upon him. God ! a small 
sloping bank, where the stream at high water formed 
a whirlpool in the turn, the slope so easy he could 


* 5 * 


The Golden Crocodile . 


save the mare as well. Crack ! the whip descended 
on the poor worn-out beast, trembling now herself 
with terror at the crashing, roaring sounds behind; 
but one final, giant effort must be made by both of 
them. A yell — a venting of his pent-up feelings — 
came from the rider’s throat at the same moment 
that the blow fell, and the spurs dashed against her 
side. A snort, as if of terror, came in answer; one 
forward bound ; then suddenly — as if utterly un- 
nerved, and feeling she must face it — the mare 
stopped dead, wheeled right round, and stood with 
eyeballs staring madlike from their sockets, and 
trembling in every limb. 

The frightful surging mass was now before the 
eyes of horse and rider. 

Quick, man, for your life ! Yourself! Quick! No 
time now to save the mare! Not one second to lose ! 

Flinging himself from the saddle, with a frantic 
rush he dashed towards the slope, two hundred feet 
away. Even now it was a race for life. The wave 
and roar were at his very heels. Had he but tripped 
just then, certainly that moment was his last. But 
he was saved, — saved by just some seconds only, 
for the wave in coming round the last bend had been 
checked a moment, and this was all the time he 
had. 

Panting and breathless he lay, or rather fell, upon 
the little sloping bank up which he rushed, scram- 
bling on all fours, the water, like a tidal wave, whirl- 
ing past with awful roar and crashing of the wreckage 


A Close Shave. 


*53 


it was bearing with it, the sound echoing and re- 
echoing in and out amongst the twists and windings 
of the precipices overhanging; then, like the rushing 
of a heavy, passing railway train, fading in the dis- 
tance, leaving only the boiling, surging, yellow flood 
below, behind. 

Just at the moment he had reached a height he 
thought was safe, had he looked down from there, 
had he but the time to do so then, he would have 
seen his poor dumb servant whirled, helplessly, 
furiously, upon the rush, rolling over and then over. 
Now the saddle uppermost, now her legs only stick- 
ing out. He never saw the little mare again. 

In one short hour the canyon floor was almost dry; 
the waters passed away as quickly as they came, and 
he was standing on the bottom, looking up at where 
he had been. 

Old Shelby? — perhaps, too, he had managed to 
escape. It was of the old man he was thinking now 
as he stood down there, uncertain, at this moment, 
in his mind, what to do, whether to keep on, whether 
to go right on through the canyon to the other end, 
or whether to go back. His anxiety to know his 
old partner’s fate settled it. An eager longing was 
within him to know the best or worst, and he hurried 
on as rapidly as possible, his pulse beating faster as 
he turned each new corner in the gloomy, winding 
chasm. The old man would be coming back if safe; 
they would meet; he, too, would be on foot; the 
buggy horses must have gone like his own poor 
beast. 


*54 


The Golden Crocodile. 


He had come so far, at last he realized that the 
end was nearly reached, and that could only mean 
one thing; he almost dreaded now to hurry; to know 
the worst for certain; a choking, lumpy feeling was 
rising in his throat, for he really had a most sincere 
regard for this man whom chance had made his close 
associate. 

Just then a shout came echoing from behind with 
startling suddenness, and made him almost jump 
with pleasure as he faced round in a moment. Could 
he have missed them ? Could they have been some- 
where up on the side as he passed down ? Looking 
backwards he could see no one; then he started, 
almost running towards where the shouts had come 
from. 

But it was not his old partner, and he was sadly 
disappointed when three men on horseback came 
quickly round the last turn he had passed. But see- 
ing him aroused the horsemen, though, at once, for, 
waving their hats above their heads, they shouted 
and hurrahed to the very fullest pitch of their 
lungs. 

“Hurrah! Bravo, bully for you, Doctor,*’ they 
yelled again and again, as they approached, dashing 
their horses, just as fast as possible, over the broken 
intervening ground, and springingfrom their saddles, 
grasped his hand enthusiastically. 

He told his tale, while they listened eagerly, and 
then they told him theirs. They had started down 
just as quick as the falling water would permit, but 


A Close Shave. 


*55 

the piles of broken wreckage in the way in many 
places almost stopped their progress. 

The enthusiasm at finding him safe was over now, 
and they all moved on again in silence; the new 
arrivals, in spite of protestations on his part, insist- 
ing that he should mount one of their horses. But 
there was not far to go until the end was reached. 
In half an hour they had passed out of the lower 
entrance, and had come to where the just lately 
cramped-up, narrow chasm suddenly gave place to 
open ground, spreading on each side, affording ample 
opportunity for escape. A feeling pressed upon them 
all, that the worst had happened. There was no use 
going further at so late an hour. To-morrow they 
would make a party up and search all down the 
stream, amongst the giant piles of wreckage. 

There was one huge pile not very far away; some 
one quietly suggested, they might as well examine 
that before they turned. They moved towards it, 
and came to where the big trees and logs were lying 
in a mass twenty feet in height, and walking round 
and round they tried to peer between the cracks 
and branches, to learn if any human being lay buried 
there. But the task, they found, was hopeless ; they 
must bring some mining powder; that alone would 
move the mass and make such openings as would let 
them see into the interior. 

They were turning now to leave, to go back home, 
when some one called attention to a something look- 
ing just like clothing; it was sticking out of a bank 


J 5 6 


The Golden Crocodile . 


of sand and debris. They dreaded to go and learn 
what there was below. But it was not what they 
had feared, though it told a tale. The hood of the 
buggy, that was what it was — the light framework 
crushed and broken into matchwood, as they found 
when using their united strength they dragged it 
from the mass, it lay there tangled in. 

They had a feeling now that somewhere else 
within the piled-up wreckage their missing comrade 
must be lying too; but nothing could be done until 
they had some other means to work with. 

“ Better come back in the morning,” they said, 
and turned, in melancholy silence, homewards. 

In Davis’s store, that evening, a group of men 
were sitting there, discussing, in gloomy tones, the 
event of the day. 

“ It ’s all up, sure, with poor old Joe and the young 
’un, or them as went down ’ud have been back before 
this,” said one, and there was a general murmur of 
agreement. 

“ Likely them as went ’s following on down the 
river; I know just how ’t is myself; you can’t make 
yourself stop,” remarked another. “ There ’ll have 
to be a party go out to-morrow and keep searching 
till them bodies is found, and I ’m willin’ to make 
one myself for two or three days,” was the practical 
observation of still another. 

The last suggestion brought plenty of offers of 
assistance, and a mournful discussion followed as to 
the best plan to be pursued. There was some differ- 


A Close Shave. 


l S7 


ence of opinion as to the easiest way to break up the 
drifts under which the search must be made; and the 
arguments on the subject were becoming so heated 
that the melancholy purpose in view had been quite 
lost sight of for the moment, when suddenly the 
company was thrown into utter confusion by the 
appearance in the doorway, from the outside dark- 
ness, of the very persons themselves. Shelby and 
the boy walked in. 

“ My God ! Why, here they are ! They 're safe ! ” 
The words went up in such a chorus that it almost 
sounded like a yell, and half-a-dozen quickly started 
up the little street to tell the news about the town, 
not waiting even to hear what the story was. 

So astonished were the company at the reappear- 
ance of those whom they had but just arranged to 
find and bury decently, that the acts and speech of 
one or two of them might have actually suggested 
to a stranger, some tinge of disappointment in their 
minds at the change from what they just now thought 
to be the case. The decidedly forcible language 
which issued from the lips of some, might have well 
deceived; but in Grizzly Hollow, what it meant was 
understood; and when one big, burly fellow, who 
only just a little before had seemed quite distressed 
and tender-hearted, the very man, indeed, who had 
offered to spend two or three days searching, burst 
out in a loud voice, with special emphasis on the 
blanks, after staring for a moment, open-mouthed, 

“ Hallo ! Why, how the did you escape, and 


The Golden Crocodile. 


158 

where’s the Doctor?” every one understood the 
strong language as merely taking the place of a 
prayer of thankfulness, which in a more strictly re- 
ligious circle might have been offered up. 

The news spread like wildfire, and everybody 
crowded down to Davis’s place to hear the story. 
But there was very little to be told. The lives of 
both had been saved by the merest chance; for, going 
through the canyon, the boy, chattering on, had 
spoken about an eagle’s nest he knew of, with some 
young ones, and that the stage-driver could get him 
a dollar each for the young birds in Glorietta. 
Good-natured Shelby, wishing to please the boy, had 
stopped, and climbed up with him. It was while 
they were up there that the flood had come. In- 
deed, so little did he know about it that the first 
rush had already passed before he realized what the 
roaring sounds far below them were, for they had 
scrambled high up amongst the jagged rocks the 
birds had built in. When the water fell, being 
then nearer to the canyon’s lower end, they had gone 
out of it that way, and had come back by the road 
across the hill. 

A rapid volley of exclamations, indicating varying 
degrees of astonishment, and with congratulations 
added, followed the conclusion of the quickly told tale. 

Then it was old Shelby’s turn to put some ques- 
tions. 

“Who went along with the Doctor?” he asked, 
supposing, from words he had heard dropping here 


A Close Shave. 


1 59 

and there, that Singleton had gone down after the 
water passed. 

They told him just what had happened; and in a 
moment their words had such a magical effect upon 
him that the others were almost as much excited as 
he had now become. 

“ My God! what do you say? How do we know 
he ain’t drowned, then?” he shouted, and jumped 
up from his seat, it was easy to see from his face, in 
a state of most painful anxiety now. “I can’t sit 
still here; it ’s no use trying. I ’m going off right 
back to meet them others,” he said, hurriedly, and, 
forgetting, in his excitement, even to put the hat on 
his gray head, until one of the others brought it after 
him. Starting for the doorway, he was followed by 
a number of the crowd, and presently a string of 
men were marching quickly down the road by which 
they knew the horsemen would return. 

Somehow the others had not thought very much 
about the risk to Singleton. They had apparently 
made up their minds that he would be cautious, 
knowing what was coming, and not go too far. 
There were places for escape, as everybody knew. 
But now that Shelby seemed so much disturbed, 
some of his fears were communicated to the others 
present. 

“Yes, we oughtn’t to have let him go; Joe 
Shelby ’s right about that,” said several amongst 
those who remained behind, or came in later, after 
the more impulsive ones had started off. 


i6o 


The Golden Crocodile . 


“ Why did n’t some of you who was here stop him ? ” 
asked a man whose absence at the time placed 
him, as he considered, in a position to criticise. 
“ No man ’s the right to throw away his life. Any- 
way, them as was round at the time ought n’t to ha’ 
let him, ef they could help it. Ef I ’d ’a’ been here 
I ’d ha’ just stopped that fool’s game with a bullet 
in the mare when I see a man gone mad. That ’s 
what I ’d ha’ done ! ” And the speaker looked round 
at the company with an expression on his face which 
seemed to indicate a feeling of superiority and con- 
tempt for such lack of resource in an emergency as 
those others had shown. 

He was talking a little later on — this man; he 
had learned that nothing had happened. He was 
leaning over the bar of one of the resorts up the 
street with a glass of whiskey in his hand. 

“Look here, boys,” and he brought his fist down 
on the bar to emphasize his remarks; “I tell you 
I ’m just ’shamed of this camp. Why, here ’s a 
tenderfoot turns out like a man, to try and help his 
mate; and you all jest standing round doing nothin’. 
Ef I ’d ’a’ been here I ’d ha’ jest took that mare from 
him, and rode where he was a-goin’. That ’s what 
I ’d ha’ done.” 

There was a meeting down the road later on that 
evening. 

Three horsemen, filing slowly homewards, slowly, 
because with them a fourth man walked afoot, saw 
coming out of the dim, late evening light, between 


A Close Shave. 


1 6 1 


the trunks of the pine-woods bordering the winding 
road ahead, a bronzed and grizzled man, with anxious, 
nervous look, approaching, walking hurriedly, others 
following close behind him. 

A shout, a rush, a big hurrah, then warm, hearty 
grasping of the hands between the young man and 
the old, and everybody else as well. 


ii 


CHAPTER VIII. 


LANDER & CO. 

M R. TOM LANDER, the genial, talkative 
gentleman whose acquaintance the reader 
made some time back, was sitting in his office this 
afternoon, doing nothing in particular, not, at any 
rate, with his fingers, though, no doubt, his active 
brain was at work all the same, for he was tilting 
back in his chair, with his feet across the corner of 
the desk in front of him, leisurely smoking a cigar, 
and with his hat on. 

The sign displayed on the outside of the office 
announced that Lander & Co. were mining and 
financial brokers; but a number of smaller notices 
inside conveyed some further information, from which 
it seemed, that the business of the firm was by no 
means restricted to the particular line which those 
subjects might be understood to include. Lander 
& Co. apparently had property of all kinds for sale 
or barter, and the list so varied in its character that 
Lander & Co. were prepared, with equal indifference, 
to sell an established millinery business, a flourish- 
ing gold mine, a cattle ranch with a thousand head 
of cattle, or to trade something for a fine-stepping 


Lander & Co. 163 

pair of horses. There was nothing too big or too 
small for the business. 

The head of the firm, the firm itself, in fact, — for 
the Co. was merely used to round off with, — was 
a man whose experience had ranged from the local 
agency of a railway company in a small town in a 
far-away' part of the country, years ago ; on through 
a long series of intermediate excursions into various 
lines of occupation, or venture, including, as he 
himself once told the reader, the editing of a news- 
paper, — though, possibly, not a very large one, — 
and landing him, finally, where we now find him. 

Tom Lander had seen some pretty hard times in 
the course of his career; but in these latter days he 
had managed to come very fairly on his feet, and, 
besides attending to his own private affairs, was 
recognized by the local politicians as a man whose 
opinion it was as well to pay some attention to; 
not that he was looking for anything for himself 
just now, but every man has his friends, and there 
was that about Tom Lander which made him a 
pretty general favorite, — a somewhat boisterous 
good humor, the effervescence of an elastic, san- 
guine temperament that he was fortunate enough 
to possess. 

But although this constitutional characteristic, 
this lightness of heart, might prove useful to him 
in such a case as the one suggested above, it was 
not an unmixed blessing; and in the past Tom 
Lander had suffered a good deal from a chronic ten- 


164 


The Golden Crocodile. 


dency to over-sanguineness in the affairs of life, 
begotten of it. 

Perhaps he had come, at length, to recognize this 
failing in himself; for after the last stroke of luck, 
the one which had set him on his feet once more, 
during the last mining excitement in Glorietta, Tom 
Lander had got married, and moved, no doubt, by 
the added wisdom which this change in his life had, 
as a matter of course, brought with it ; had made a 
settlement of his affairs which seemed as if specially 
designed to protect himself against himself for the 
future. 

Certainly, in the light of past experience, it was a 
judicious thing for him to do; but, curiously enough, 
it is a question if some of Tom Lander’s friends had 
not to suffer for this act of caution on his part ; for 
no sooner had Tom, metaphorically speaking, clipped 
his own wings, than he seemed to be filled with a 
doubly greater longing to fly, and, failing now the 
means to satisfy this desire, his energies were 
directed, to persuading others to do what he himself 
had been cut off from. His friends got the benefit 
of his imaginative powers, and put up the stakes, 
while Tom picked up the crumbs which business 
and custom made his due, — good-sized crumbs, 
too, very often. 

Naturally enough, it did not transpire that Tom 
could predict with any greater success for others 
now, than in the past he had for himself ; but people 
came and went, there were new ones to take the 


Lander & Co. 165 

place of old ones who had been disappointed, and 
were sometimes heard growling. 

But it was not easy, even for a loser, to be angry 
with Tom Lander, he had such a pleasant, good- 
humored way about him, and generally managed to 
smooth things over whenever people came to express 
dissatisfaction. On such occasions, the wrath of the 
visitor was sometimes even turned to sympathy, as 
Tom feelingly described how villanously he had 
been deceived himself, and the considerable extent 
of his own personal losses, the latter, of course, only 
a little flight of imagination, but still the visitor did 
not know any better, and no doubt the expression on 
Tom’s face at the moment would have carried con- 
viction to a very hard heart indeed. 

There was a movement in the outside office, 
presently, which seemed to attract Mr. Lander’s 
attention; evidently he recognized the voice of 
some one asking for him. 

“Here I am; come right in,” he called out, and, 
in response to the invitation, Harry Singleton, once 
more stripped of his mining garb, and dressed now 
to suit the comparatively civilized surroundings 
down here, away from the rougher life of the camp 
above, appeared. 

“ How are you, old man ? Have n’t seen you round 
since I heard you ’d come down from Grizzly. Here, 
take this seat, this is a better one. So you ’re giv- 
ing up the old hole you ’ve been digging in there, I 
hear. Good thing, too, for you, if you don’t mind 


1 66 


The Golden Crocodile. 


my saying so. Where do you keep yourself down 
here? Staying at the same old place, are you? 
Why don’t you get around and see me sometimes? 
How long ’s it to be till old Shelby comes back? ” 

Without waiting to answer all these questions, 
the visitor confined himself principally to the last 
one, which was, in fact, indirectly, the matter which 
brought him there. 

“I ’ve got a letter here from Shelby, which came 
yesterday; and he says that he ’ll not be back as 
soon as he intended, when he went away; in fact, I 
suppose it ’s no breach of confidence,” he laughed, 
“to say that he hints at the possibility of his mak- 
ing arrangements to get married, if not before he 
returns, then some time next year. He ’s met some 
widow, so he says, that he used to know as a girl in 
some camp he was at years ago; though, of course, 
that ’s not what I wanted to see you about, — it ’s 
about the Medicine Creek claim of the old bishop’s. 
Perhaps Shelby told you we were going to work that 
this winter, and it was to have been left until his 
return to finish the legal part of it; but, on account 
of this change in his plans, he asks me to go ahead 
at once, without waiting for his return, so I thought 
of you, and that you could get the papers prepared 
for me. The points to be put in the agreement I ’ve 
got here with me.” 

While his visitor was talking, a peculiar look of 
intelligence had passed over the face of the head of 
Lander and Co., but had disappeared again by the 


Lander & Co. 


167 


time his companion had ended; the expression was 
one rather of satisfaction, as if the news he had just 
heard were particularly gratifying, though why it 
should be, in view of the comparatively slight ac- 
quaintance between himself and old Shelby, would 
not seem to be clear. But we would hazard a guess 
as to the reason for Mr. Lander’s satisfaction. 
Might it not have been caused by a passing thought, 
that this change in the old man’s domestic arrange- 
ments might lead to his permanent removal to a dis- 
tance, in which case that opportunity which Lander 
had so far been deprived of by his presence; the op- 
portunity to bring to the notice of the young fellow 
sitting there in the chair, some of those golden oppor- 
tunities which he, Lander himself, was so unfortu- 
nately debarred by the force of circumstances from 
taking advantage of. 

It was a critical time just now for Singleton, but 
as he was quite ignorant of the fact, the situation 
did not disturb him at all; he did not notice the 
glance which Mr. Lander cast at him once or twice 
as he examined those papers he had brought, — a 
glance, seeming each time to be made with the 
object of studying more closely the character of the 
man he was thinking about. “ What kind of a fly 
would he take best, I wonder/’ one can conceive to 
have been the essence of Mr. Lander’s inward reflec- 
tions, if put into words. But Tom Lander was too 
shrewd a man to contemplate acting with precipi- 
tancy; he knew human nature too well; he knew 


1 68 


The Golden Crocodile . 


how it was with himself. He finished his examina- 
tion presently, and expressed himself as only too 
pleased to be of any service in getting the matter 
his visitor had come about put into proper form; 
the thing was perfectly simple and straightforward ; 
but he would get his own lawyer to look it over, just 
to make quite sure; it was always wise never to run 
any risks in business. “Be dead sure, and then 
you’re all right,” observed Mr. Lander, philosophi- 
cally; “and then you ’ll have nothing to worry you : 
to keep you lying awake at night.” 

His visitor heartily coincided in the suggestion to 
have the matter referred to a proper legal source, 
and was distinctly impressed with the cautious, care- 
ful way in which Tom Lander, with whom his rela- 
tions hitherto had been only of a social character; 
did business. 

The interview lasted for some little time, resolv- 
ing itself later on into a friendly chat about things 
in general, in the course of which Mr. Lander hap- 
pened, quite casually, to put his hand on the morn- 
ing newspaper, published in the town of X., — for 
Glorietta could only support a weekly one, — and, 
absently looking it over, came across the account 
of some wonderfully rich finds of gold lately reported 
from the Elk Mountain District away up north. 

“Ah, by the way, here’s something’ll interest a 
mining man like you,” observed the genial Tom. 
“ I ’d quite forgotten about it, though I ought not to 
have, for I ’ve sent a man up there to see what it 


Lander & Co. 


169 


amounts to. Not for myself, you know, but some 
of my clients wanted to know the facts; you can’t 
believe half these stories you read. What ’s a man 
want to go and shout out on a housetop for, that 
he ’s got a hole full of gold, if he has it? No, no; 
you ’re never safe in these things unless you send 
your own man,” and Mr. Lander ended with his 
usual hearty, genial laugh; a little louder, too, this 
time, than usual, possibly because he couldn’t help 
thinking of what horrible story-tellers some people 
were, and it amused him. 

The reports from the Elk Mountain District were 
certainly very wonderful; and the interest of Mr. 
Lander’s visitor was considerably aroused, insomuch 
that, on leaving, he asked if he might take the report 
away with him. 

“Take it? Yes, of course you can take it. I 
don’t want it. I never believe that kind of stuff. 
Ten to one, it ’s puff and wind, nothing more. But 
I ’ll know all about it later on, when my man gets 
back. Come round and see me again when you ’ve 
nothing better to do,” and the jovial Tom nodded 
good-bye, with one or more of those good-natured 
laughs of his. 

That laugh was a fortune to Tom, though it was 
only of late years he had begun to realize its value. 

After his return to the mine Singleton had heard 
little or nothing more of the people at the old 
bishop’s ranch. Nothing beyond one letter from 
Maggie Rankine, in answer to one he had written 


170 


The Golden Crocodile . 


himself, and which told him of her friend Kitty 
Allen’s sudden departure and return home. Her 
father, who had been slightly unwell when she left, 
had got typhoid fever, — all the plans for the ball 
in full frontier costume had consequently fallen 
through. 

Since that letter he had heard not a word, and 
had been so absorbed in the work at the mine as not 
to give more than an occasional passing thought to 
the acquaintances he had made that time. But a 
few days after getting back to Glorietta, he had 
ridden up to the ranch, only to find, however, that 
the old man’s little girl was away from home, stay- 
ing with some friends in the distant town of X., and 
not expected back for a fortnight. The old bishop 
himself was away from home, too, that day; and the 
information was given by the people he found on 
the place. 

It was not much of a compliment to the little girl 
who had interested him a good deal during that first 
visit, that only because he now no longer had the 
mine to think about he should be looking forward to 
her return; but, to tell the truth, his dreams of suc- 
cess up there at the mine had been so extravagantly 
raised only a few days after returning to it, in con- 
sequence of the men finding certain favorable indica- 
tions, that all other subjects had been banished from 
his thoughts; and he was not really brought back to 
his sober senses until the time came when his old 
partner — who knew from experience the true value 


Lander & Co. 


I7i 

of such signs, and how often they proved delusive — 
had stubbornly declined to go on any longer with the 
adventure. 

Yes, his old partner’s stubbornness had brought 
him back from dreamland for the time being, at any 
rate, or he might have been up there at this moment ; 
but, instead of that, he was sitting in his room in 
Glorietta, the evening after seeing Tom Lander, 
writing something; then reading it carefully over 
several times, making alterations, and afterwards 
re-writing the whole thing. Finally, he enclosed it 
in an envelope, went out round the corner to the 
little post-office, and slipped it into the box; the 
smile of satisfaction on his face as he returned would 
have led one to believe that there was something 
connected with it, of a pleasing nature. 

The post-office man inside happened to be gather- 
ing up the letters from the box, preparatory to clos- 
ing the mail-bag for the midnight train going West, 
just as that letter fell through the slit from the hand 
outside. And, as it turned, with the address up, 
quite mechanically his eye ran over it as he picked 
it up and hurriedly thrust it into the bag along with 
the others. There was nothing dark or secretive 
about Singleton’s correspondence; the address was 
very commonplace; it ran thus: “The Editor, 
‘Daily , ’ San Francisco, California” 

It was about a week later that Harry Singleton 
heard of the return home of the old bishop’s little 
girl, and as it was necessary for him to go up and 


172 


The Golden Crocodile. 


see the old man himself, on account of some point 
in reference to the Medicine Creek mine which Mr. 
Lander’s lawyer had asked for an explanation of 
before he could proceed, Singleton made up his 
mind to go that same afternoon. 

He found Maggie at the front of the house, looking 
on while a workman was moving some large oleanders 
which stood out on the lawn in boxes in summer, 
but had to be kept in the kitchen in the winter. 

“ Oh, I thought you must have gone back to your 
own country again, as we never heard anything more 
of you,” she said, with a smile, as he came up and 
shook hands with her. 

“ Is n’t it too bad of father, not having these taken 
in before? I only came back last night, and you 
know what a heavy frost there was everywhere four 
nights ago.” 

“You thought I’d gone back to England, did 
you? I’m sure you never thought anything of the 
kind, now,” he retorted, as he followed, while she 
led the way indoors. “You know quite well I’d 
never have gone away without coming to say good- 
bye; but, after I tell you all about the excitement I 
had up at the mine, you ’ll easily forgive me.” 

“ Did you really make a strike, then ? How lucky 
you are ! Oh, I did n’t hear that before ! ” and little 
Maggie’s face lighted up with the pleasure which 
she evidently felt at his success. “Then I don’t 
wonder your time was so much occupied. I am 
glad. How proud you must feel, especially as it 


Lander & Co. 173 

was where other people had given up trying any 
more ! ” 

“No, no,” he hurriedly proceeded to explain, as 
quickly as he could get a word in ; and there was an 
expression on his face which showed that he felt a 
little foolish at the interpretation she had put upon 
his words. 

“No, no. We didn’t make a strike after all; but 
I thought we were going to, and that made me so 
interested I forgot about everything else.” 

“Oh — ” and Maggie’s face dropped again all at 
once; “but I’m sure it must have been very excit- 
ing,” she added, consolingly, and trying to make up 
for the bit of uncomfortable feeling which she could 
see her misconstruction of his words had caused 
him. 

There was more color in her face now than when 
he saw her last, and she was very full of the pleasant 
time a party of them had had camping out at the 
Blue Lake. 

“That was where Kitty was to have gone with us, 
only, as you know, she had to go home again. Was n’t 
it a pity when she had come all this way ? — and Mr. 
Allen wasn’t seriously ill after all, though he was a 
long time down with the fever. You ought to try 
and get up there yourself, too, next fall, you’re so 
fond of fishing; the trout are twice as big as those 
in the river here.” 

“You certainly look as if the outing had agreed 
with you,” he said, glancing at her little sunburnt 


i74 


The Golden Crocodile . 


face. “You didn’t come across any more of those 
caves with mummies, while you were up there, did 
you? ” he asked, smiling, and for the want of some- 
thing better to say. 

“No, there are no caves up there; but do you 
know,” and here little Maggie’s face assumed a 
half-solemn, half-scared expression, “ such a strange 
thing happened to me; I was quite frightened.” 

It was on his lips to say something about the 
danger of wandering about alone in such places; but 
she went on before he had time to begin. 

“ I was out by myself once, and I came to a little 
gulch full of beautiful, tall, straight cedars, and 
the wild flowers spreading all over the ground. It 
wasn’t very far, either, from where our camp was; 
but no wood-choppers had ever been in there. None 
of the trees had been touched, though some had 
fallen, just from old age; and it looked as if a white 
man had never been there before. 

“ It was a beautiful, bright, sunny day, without a 
breath of air or a leaf moving, and I couldn’t hear 
a single bird; everything was so still, so quiet, it 
almost startled me, when I sat down to rest ; for while 
I was scrambling down into the gulch from above I 
didn’t notice the silence. But while I was sitting 
down there on the grass, just thinking and thinking, 
and saying to myself that what I was looking at now 
had been there like that for thousands and tens of 
thousands of years, and I was wondering what the 
men could have been like who used to come here, 


Lander & Co. 


1 75 

then suddenly, oh, such a strange feeling came 
creeping all over! 

“I thought that all the trees and the rocks were 
alive and moving about, and were beckoning to 
me. 

“ I climbed back up the place I had come down, 
oh so quick.” 

Perhaps he felt inclined to laugh at her story, only 
he could see from her face that she was very much 
in earnest, and that the incident had been a vivid 
reality to her. It puzzled him, after having seen 
this same girl dash at a mountain-lion, to hear her 
speak of something which seemed like a little ner- 
vous attack, and in broad daylight too. But he 
remembered, now, that time once before, out in the 
verandah, when she got up suddenly and left him 
while in the middle of telling him something. 

“Whatever makes you think of such things? ” he 
said, a little chidingly, for her childish manner as 
she told her story seemed to make the difference 
between their years as more like youth and mature 
age than what it really was. “Don’t you think you 
fell asleep and were only dreaming? ” 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” she cried. “ I know it was n’t that ; 
I know I wasn’t dreaming; but sometimes I think 
it was because the air was so deathly still there, and 
everything so silent.” 

“But you must have been reading something, you 
know, to make you think about people being there 
ten thousand years ago. Why do you read about 


The Golden Crocodile . 


176 

those things, if you take them so much in earnest; 
you ’ve made me your confidant, so you won’t mind 
my saying what I think, will you? But I’ve got 
something here, on quite a different subject, that 
will interest you, I expect; if you care to bring 
your mind down to anything so matter of fact, after 
your enchanted gulch,” he added pleasantly. 

“ Oh, don’t, please don’t speak like that about it ! ” 
she urged, and he could see from her looks that he 
did not realize her feelings, whatever on earth they 
might be caused by, as he asked himself. 

“Do you care to see what I’ve got here?” he 
asked, hastening to get on some more cheerful 
topic. 

“What is it?” 

“Oh, it’s something that will interest you, if I 
haven’t left it in my other coat. No, here it is, all 
right. I can’t read it aloud myself,” he said, as he 
handed her a piece of a newspaper; “so I ’ll go out- 
side while you look over it,” and with an air of 
assumed seriousness on his face he got up from his 
seat and made as if to leave the room. 

She took what he handed her, holding it, un- 
opened, in her fingers, and looked up inquiringly at 
him, not understanding what he meant. But he 
could not maintain the expression, and soon settled 
back, smiling, into his chair again. 

She glanced quickly over it. Then her face 
lighted up suddenly, partly with pleasure evidently, 
though her first words were a remonstrance. 


Lander & Co. 


177 


“ Oh, what a shame ! What nasty things they do 
say!” she cried, as she eagerly read through what he 
had pointed out. And little Maggie would not have 
been human if she had not felt a glow of pride at 
seeing her own name in a long description of that 
adventure with the puma months ago, and all that 
had happened at the time. 

That letter Singleton had gone out late one even- 
ing to post, — this was it. It had occurred to him 
that day as a happy thought, — something to please 
his little companion in the adventure, something to 
bring with him when he came up to see her. Only 
the way the story was headed when it came back 
rather altered the aspect of it from his point of view; 
but perhaps that was his own fault for not sending 
his own name to the paper when he sent the account 
of the adventure. The office could not know, with- 
out being told, that their correspondent was the man 
himself who was there with the young girl ; if they 
had, perhaps they wouldn’t have headed it, “An 
American girl shows an Englishman how to face a 
mountain-lion. He funks it, so she takes the gun 
herself.” 

“What a shame!” she repeated presently, an ex- 
pression of mingled gratification and annoyance 
plainly showing on her little sunburnt face. “ I 
do wonder who could have sent that; but they 
needn’t have spoiled it all by saying such disagree- 
able things about you. I shall just ask father to 
write and say how unfair it is to you. ” 


i 7 B 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Of course he didn’t tell her who had sent it; he 
only went on laughing a little ; and really, now, he 
began to think, as he glanced at her, he was not 
altogether sorry it had been put that way. But there 
was such a determined look in his little companion’s 
face as she repeated, several times again, her inten- 
tion to get her father to write; that he was afraid 
she might do so. 

“You mustn’t be angry with the paper,” he said, 
laughing it off; “I think myself it’s rather a good 
joke. Besides, after all, you know, it does look as 
if it might be true, the way they put it about me, 
and I like it best just as it is; you ought to be given 
even more praise than you get there, I think. I 
wouldn’t part with it for anything,” and, perhaps, 
as he said the last words, there was a little some- 
thing in his tone, for a slight blush, which passed 
over her face, was not quite hidden by the sunburn 
on her cheeks. 

“You’ll promise me not to ask your father to 
write about it, won’t you?” he urged. 

But she seemed to have quite set her mind on 
doing what he was protesting against, and he had 
some little difficulty in persuading her. 

“ You know,” he explained to her, “ it ’s impossible 
to alter it now, and if they were to take any notice 
of your father’s letter, it would only call attention to 
the joke against me ; so the last state would be worse 
than the first, would n’t it ? ” 

This last argument of his seemed to put the matter 
in a new light. 


Lander & Co. 


x 7 9 


“ If you really think it would be better not to take 
any notice of it,” she replied, still hesitating some- 
what, “ I — ” 

“Much better, much better,” he broke in, glad to 
find he had gained his point at last. “Besides, it 
was all my own f — ” 

He stopped suddenly; the words had slipped 
thoughtlessly from him ; it was the last thing in the 
world that he had intended to say — to let her know 
that he had sent it himself. A tickling in his throat 
seized him just at that moment, and from the fit of 
coughing which followed, it looked as if the improve- 
ment in his lungs, from the mountain air, that he had 
been boasting of for several months had suddenly 
disappeared and left him a hopeless invalid again. 

She looked on sympathetically while his attack 
lasted, and when he stopped he thought she surely 
must have forgotten, by this time, what he had 
said. 

“You haven’t been as careful of your old cough 
as you ought to,” she said; and he felt that the 
diversion had succeeded, but only for a moment, for 
she had evidently been waiting. 

“What did you mean by saying just now it was 
your own fault?” she asked, looking at him quite 
innocently. “ How was it your fault ? ” 

The cough came back again for a few seconds, 
while he collected his thoughts behind his handker- 
chief. 

He had to say something pretty quick now. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 80 

“Oh — er — er — yes, it was my fault. I meant it 
was my fault because I might have sent the account 
myself, you know, ” — he was getting pretty red in 
the face just now, — “at the time it happened, you 
know, instead of waiting for some one to pick up 
the story in Glorietta, and send it off like this 
months afterwards.” 

“ Oh, I see ; I wonder now who did send it though ! 
I should so like to know,” and she looked up at the 
ceiling as if it might answer the problem. 

He didn’t want to have to prevaricate any further, 
if it could be avoided, and he had a suggestion to 
make. 

“We shall find out some time, I expect, if we 
keep quiet about it, and don’t ask anybody. Don’t 
you think that would be the best plan?” he said, 
smiling hypocritically. 

“Perhaps it would,” she replied, “though I did 
think, at first, I ’d so like to show it to some of my 
friends; but I don’t want to now.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean you not to show it to any- 
body; I don’t care a fig about that,” he laughed; “I 
only meant not to try and find out who sent it.” 

“I don’t want to show it to anybody, it’s so 
unfair,” she repeated, as he drew it from his pocket 
again, and urged her to take it, while she persisted 
in refusing. It was an act of self-denial on the little 
girl’s part, but she stuck to her point; he could not 
persuade her, though he was still trying when the 
workman who was moving the oleanders into the 


Lander & Co. 


1 8 1 


kitchen sent word that he wanted to know where 
they were to be put; and she went out to show 
him, after asking her visitor to excuse her for a few 
minutes. 

It was not many days after that, until he found 
some other excuse for going up to the place, and if 
the number of visits he made there professedly about 
the Medicine Creek claim was any index to its value, 
it must have been worth more than the owner, the 
old bishop himself, seemed to think it was. 

But, after all, there was good excuse for Singleton ; 
it was better, and, perhaps, that was the way he 
looked at it himself, to be out at the ranch than to 
be staying in the town, — in Glorietta; where at any 
moment he might be run against by Tom Lander, 
and have to withstand a fresh charge of persuasive 
eloquence; for that gentleman had cautiously com- 
menced operations, and, indeed, had been already so 
far successful that it looked as if old Shelby, unless 
he hurried, would be minus a partner when he got 
back. 

The predicament he was in just about this time 
was certainly a little trying to Singleton, and a 
much older man than he was might very well have 
succumbed; the situation was not only trying, but 
in some respects a little ludicrous as well. There 
he was going out to the old bishop’s place to escape 
from Tom Lander, lest that gentleman’s persuasive 
eloquence should lead him to plunge into some spec- 
ulations he wished to avoid, until he could get the 


182 


The Golden Crocodile. 


opinion of his old partner about them ; at the same 
time, in fleeing from Lander, he was running into 
another danger, for he was fast falling in love with 
the little girl out there. 

In such circumstances as these it was quite clear 
that something had got to happen pretty soon, and 
it did, brought about by the return from the Elk 
Mountain of the agent Tom Lander had sent up 
privately. 

Mr. Lander, as the reader possibly remembers, 
had rather pooh-poohed the first news received from 
that place; “puff and wind merely, ” or words some- 
thing to that effect had been used by him in speak- 
ing of it to Singleton; but, contrary, entirely, to 
this prediction, the news now brought back was that 
the finds really were astonishingly rich ; an announce- 
ment which did not seem to surprise Mr. Lander at 
all, and would make one inclined to suspect that he 
had some object in saying what he did that first 
time. Still, we need not go into that. 

The excitement in Glorietta, following the receipt 
of this good news, was intense, for the principal 
owners were residents here, who had been for years 
grub-staking the prospector who had made the lucky 
find; in a few weeks the little town was fairly car- 
ried off its feet, to the great delight of Tom Lander, 
who remarked, gleefully, that it even reminded him 
a little of the good old rollicking days when the 
camp above at Grizzly was in its prime. Things 
now in Glorietta were, to use one of Mr. Lander’s 


Lander & Co. 


183 


most expressive phrases, “just humming ;” the 
“ humming ” consisting of what followed immedi- 
ately, as a matter of course, — the formation of end- 
less companies to work claims on Elk Mountain; 
very soon, indeed, the pace had become so rapid 
that it was considered quite a dull day unless at least 
three or four new companies were announced. 

It might appear to have been an unfortunate cir- 
cumstance that winter came on so severely and so 
suddenly in the Elk Mountains that year; for there 
had been no time before the snow came, and buried 
the whole place up until next spring, to ascertain 
the value of any of the claims, with the exception 
of the original rich find, the “Golden Crocodile,” 
as it had been christened. 

But this lack of information made no difference in 
Glorietta. Not a creature seemed to be distressed 
by the fact. Indeed, as Mr. Lander whispered in 
the ear of a particular friend of his, late one even- 
ing, this uncertainty was a distinct advantage, inas- 
much as it left such a fine field for the exercise of 
imagination in the mean time. 

“ Omne ignotum pro magnifico ,” added Mr. Lander, 
with a knowing wink to his friend on that occasion, 
or he would have if he had happened to think of it 
at the moment. 

At any rate, things in Glorietta kept on “hum- 
ming,” so that it began to look as if all the rocks on 
Elk Mountain must be solid gold, or some one would 
get left before the boom was over. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


i 84 

But long before events had reached this stage, 
Harry Singleton had yielded to the exciting influ- 
ences by which he was now surrounded; it was fairly 
impossible to remain a mere spectator while men all 
round were making fortunes. 

“ I ’m mighty glad you ’ve made up your mind to 
join the crowd,” was Mr. Lander’s salutation to him 
on the day when Singleton announced his determin- 
ation. “Now, you take my tip, and don’t be afraid 
of going right into this; get hold of every dollar you 
can put your hands on, and whack it right in ; and 
by next spring you ’ll have made enough money to 
load up the ship you go back to England in. I was 
cautious about this myself at first, as you know; it 
takes facts to convince me. You ’re not thinking 
any more of going on with that scheme you had at 
Medicine Creek, now old Shelby’s back, are you? 
Look here, Singleton, that man ’s an old moss-back, 
or he ’d have done better for himself out of all the 
chances he ’s had in his day. He ’s been giving you 
a lot of fatherly advice since he came back, I ’ll 
wager, ha! ha! ” and Mr. Lander ended up with one 
of his usual hearty outbursts. 

Yes, the elder partner had returned at last; but 
too late to keep the firm together, for Singleton had 
already made up his mind to follow the attractions 
of the Elk Mountain excitement, and, indeed, had 
acted upon the resolution. 

There was nothing but good feeling between the 
two former partners when the time came for settling 


Lander & Co. 


185 

up and final parting; old Shelby was perfectly good- 
natured about it; though, for the time at least, 
Singleton had some feeling of self-reproach for hav- 
ing deserted the man at whose hands he had received 
such hospitable treatment on first coming here, broken 
in health and a complete stranger; and this feeling 
was certainly not lessened by his finding, on getting 
back to his rooms that evening, a package addressed 
to himself, containing a magnificent gold watch and 
chain, a gift to him from the man he had said good- 
bye to, that morning. 

With it was a letter from the old man, saying that 
he had bought the watch for him while he was away, 
and explaining, in simple language, that he offered 
it as a little acknowledgment of that incident at 
the time of the canyon flood, and begged Singleton 
to accept it. The letter went on to say that the 
writer had left that afternoon for the mountains, hav- 
ing made other arrangements with the old bishop 
about the Medicine mine; and after that came a few 
parting words, which Singleton read over more than 
once, as soon as his first feeling of surprise at the 
gift had subsided. 

His first impulse on finding what the contents of 
the package were, and reading the letter, had been 
to refuse to accept it as wholly unnecessary, and as 
making too much of the affair altogether; but he 
found that his own name had been engraved on the 
inside, together with the giver's, and some words 
describing the circumstances. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


1 86 


“Hang it,” he said to himself, as he sat there 
smoking, and every now and then having another 
look at the present; “it’s rather heaping coals of 
fire on my head after the way I ’ve left him. He’s 
a devilish good-hearted old fellow; still, as Tom 
Lander says, he is too slow for times like these. 
Lander could n’t get him to put anything into Elk 
Mountain, so he told me.” 

Then he turned to his old partner’s letter, and 
read over again the latter part of it. “You’re a 
young man, Doctor, and I ’m getting to be an oldish 
one,” it ran; “and it ’s only natural for you to be 
acting as you are. I did the same when I was your 
age. But I ’ve see the bottom drop out of too 
many booms to make me want to take any more 
chances in them at my age. I don’t want to say as 
this Elk Mountain business is not solid; maybe it 
is, and maybe it 'isn’t. I don’t want to discourage 
you; though things in Glorietta is flying pretty high 
already. But no man ever kep’ out of a boom by 
being advised to ; so I won’t say nothing to you. 
Yes, I ’m going on with the Medicine Creek busi- 
ness myself, and I ’ll send down, next week, your 
photographs and other things was brought from the 
cabin at Grizzly. It ’ll be a bit lonely for me this 
winter, with only the men around; I did say once 
I ’d never do no more mining, until it happened you 
come there to the lumber mill and persuaded me 
into trying the old Silver Ledge, so I got a little 
enthused again for the business; and now I feel as 


Lander & Co. 


1 8 7 

though I ’d like to go on a bit longer, anyway; 
specially as Martha ’s wanting to come and live out 
here again when we get married next year. I told 
you before we ’d settled on that; she wants to come 
back here where the wild life is she know’d when 
she was a girl. If you ’ll come up and see me 
any time you like, Doctor, I ’ll be pleased, — you 
and me knows each other, and I always liked you 
well.” 

He felt a little twinge of remorse at the picture of 
his old partner all alone up there, and promptly 
resolved to go up and see him very soon, and to 
repeat the visit during the winter, whenever he 
could get away so far. 

The photographs and other trifles came down in 
due course, and letters passed between them ; but it 
was a long time before Harry Singleton and his old 
partner met again. The all-absorbing, daily, and 
increasing interest that he took in the Elk Mountain 
boom kept him so completely occupied that, even if 
he did not forget all about the resolution that he 
made that time, perhaps the calls of business made 
it difficult for him to get away; though he found time 
to go up to the bishop’s ranch pretty often; but 
then that was so close by. 

That winter, in Glorietta, was one talked of for 
years afterwards; the little town, which in ordinary 
times, with the coming of frost and snow, and the 
consequent closing of the higher mining camps in 
the mountains round, went almost to rest till spring; 


1 88 


The Golden Crocodile . 


completely lost its senses in the wild rush of the Elk 
Mountain boom, the conduct of the people only prov- 
ing how true was that remark Tom Lander made a 
little while ago, when he whispered to a friend that 
the conditions at Elk Mountain, meaning the fact 
of the claims being buried under snow till spring, 
left a good roomy field for the play of imagination. 
Nobody waited to ask the question, why, because 
one claim had been proved rich, hundreds of others 
which had not been proved at all should be rich also. 
It was enough that any claim should be somewhere 
in the Elk Mountains, to give it a fabulous value; 
and so the trafficking went madly on. 

It would be absurd to suggest that Harry Singleton 
had any better judgment than the crowd of experi- 
enced men who, attracted by the news of the boom 
which had quickly spread, flocked into the place, 
and opened so many offices for the traffic in Elk 
Mountain shares that the business of the town 
seemed to consist of nothing else; but, without 
stopping to inquire whether it was good luck or 
good management, the fact remained that he was 
extraordinarily successful; so much so, indeed, that 
Tom Lander was in the habit of remarking, with a 
laugh, that his young friend was now able to give 
him points every time. And Singleton himself, as 
he sat up in his comfortable rooms at night during 
the bitter cold of that unusually trying winter, again 
and again congratulated himself on the step which 
he had taken, and contrasted his present surround- 


Lander & Co. 


189 

ings with what they would have been out there in 
the mountains, living in such quarters as the Medi- 
cine Creek claim afforded, — good enough, doubtless, 
for strong men inured to the life, but this was his 
first experience of winter in that place, and he had 
had no conception of the cold to be resisted. He 
had every reason to be thoroughly pleased with 
everything. 

He had looked into his affairs only the other day, 
with the astonishing result, — he had been so busy 
that he had not for some time kept a close account 
of how he stood, — that he had trebled his money in 
the last two months. This was away beyond his 
former wildest anticipations; but everything pointed 
to a still further rapid advance, more particularly in 
just the shares he held; there was really no reason 
why he should not see his original investments mul- 
tiplied by six before the spring. It was impossible 
to doubt that these finds were, as every one said, the 
extension of the rich Golden Monster lode, out of 
which ten millions profit had been made. It had 
always been predicted in the district that in that 
very direction the extension of the lode would sooner 
or later be found; and the prediction had come true. 
These things he had learned from men who knew 
that place well. It was unfortunate in some ways, 
that the new discoveries had only been made just as 
winter came on, and the heavy snow made it impos- 
sible to immediately proceed with further investiga- 
tions; but, directly the snows going off in the spring 


190 


The Golden Crocodile . 


made it possible to do so, however, he would take a 
run up there himself, though that, of course, would 
not be for some time yet. 

Then, it would be a good time to sell out. Yes, 
he thought that would be just the time. Tom 
Lander had said so too, privately. 

No doubt there would be a further rise in the 
shares; still one ought to be satisfied; though it 
would be rather disgusting to sell out, and then see 
the shares still going up and up afterwards, to have 
parted with what might have made another fifty 
thousand dollars. No! it was a difficult matter to 
consider so far ahead as this; it would be better not 
to decide until the time came; it would be folly to 
sell out in too great a hurry. But all that was a 
long way off; there was no use in thinking about it 


now. 


CHAPTER IX. 


A SLY OLD WOMAN. 



ROM the stirring life which he had been lead- 


-*■ ing, it often seemed to Singleton as if it were 
years since he left Grizzly Hollow. 

The camp up there, at this time, lay utterly 
deserted; buried yards beneath the winter snows; 
the people gone elsewhere till spring, some of them 
staying here in Glorietta, others gone for good- — 
gone, never to return. 

The memory of that melancholy experience which 
had so quickly followed his advent into mining life, 
still, at times, came back to his mind with terrible 
vividness, and all his first feelings of horror would 
be completely revived; but after a few days these 
would pass off again, and weeks might go by until 
he thought of it again. 

There was one feature of the affair which some- 
how did not seem at any time to have impressed him 
as forcibly as might have been expected, consider- 
ing his training, — the utter lawlessness of the pro- 
ceedings. While fully realizing that the act was a 
crime, yet the rough life in the midst of which it 
was committed seemed to him in some way to change 
the character of the offence; and it is a question if 


192 


The Golden Crocodile . 


he had ever given any serious thought to what the 
consequences to himself might be, if the seal of 
secrecy which enshrouded the affair should ever, by 
any chance, be broken. Conscious that no charge 
could justly be made against himself, apparently, he 
had overlooked the trouble, if not peril, even, in 
which, notwithstanding that fact, he might be placed 
if such a thing as just suggested should occur. 

But something happened late that winter to bring 
the subject before him afresh, and with such start- 
ling suddenness that for the first time he realized 
the difficulties that his connection with the affair, 
involuntary though it was, might involve him in. 

One Saturday, after the closing of the Exchange; 
— for Glorietta by this time could boast of a real 
mining Exchange, an institution begotten of the Elk 
Mountain boom, — not a very pretentious institution, 
true, merely a large room over one of the leading 
saloons, still a place where a lot of money seemed 
to be changing hands these days; he had been up 
spending the evening at the old bishop’s place. His 
acquaintances there, it may be mentioned, being no 
less cordial in these days than formerly, — so cordial 
now, indeed, to judge from the regularity of his 
visits, as to furnish subject for discussion amongst 
the Glorietta gossips; who refused to believe that 
the young Englishman rode up there so often, 
merely, as he said himself, to hear how his former 
partner was getting on at the bishop’s Medicine 
Creek mine above. 


A Sly Old Woman. 


*93 


But to return. He had got back only ten minutes 
before; having ridden down in the dark, in the 
teeth of a biting wind, driving a fine, powdery snow 
before it, thankful to get the shelter of the warm 
comfortable rooms he had in a quiet, rambling, old 
wooden hotel — the first place of its kind ever 
opened in the little town, and that many years ago — • 
whither he had removed from one of the noisier and 
larger hotels, all of which, in these stirring times, 
had virtually been converted, as far as the public 
portions of them were concerned, into informal Ex- 
changes for carrying on the Elk Mountain traffic till 
all hours of the night. ‘ As he sat there, leaning 
forward over the blaze, spreading out his half-frozen 
hands to thaw them as quick as possible, the smile 
upon his features told of pleasant inward thoughts, 
perhaps of something he had heard or that had 
occurred that evening. Presently he got up, went 
over to a table in the corner, and, unlocking a 
drawer, took out a little leathern case that might 
have held a photograph ; going nearer to the lamp, 
he looked closely at this for some moments; then 
drawing out the picture there, slipping into the 
place of it one he took from his inside pocket, 
pressed this to his lips. 

It was the sweet, though somewhat childish, little 
face of Maggie Rankine. 

Resuming his seat by the fire, the same pleasant 
thoughts, judging from his looks, kept running in 
his mind; and so absorbing must they have been — 
13 


i 9 4 


The Golden Crocodile . 


though, perhaps, the roaring noise of the fire in the 
stove accounted for it partly — that for the second 
time some one was rapping on the door before he 
noticed it, and called out, in a mechanical manner, 
to come in; for he was not unaccustomed to have 
visitors as late as this. The door opened in response 
to his invitation, and a short, heavily-wrapped female 
figure entered, revealing, as she drew back the shawl 
which had been over her head, and almost entirely 
hid her face as well, the dark and somewhat wrinkled 
features of a woman ; of some foreign nationality 
which, if her accent had not presently disclosed 
the fact, might easily have been guessed to be 
Italian. 

He had not even looked round when he gave the 
invitation to come in, so intent was he on the fire, 
or the subject of his reflections; but as he did, and 
saw who had answered it, he was so puzzled that he 
waited, merely looking at her, for his visitor to 
speak. 

In broken, foreign accents she wanted to know if 
he were not Dr. Singleton. Perhaps she knew very 
well to whom she was speaking, and her question 
was only something to open the conversation. 

To him the question seemed at once to throw a 
light upon the object of her visit; and the look of 
puzzled inquiry on his face gave place to one of 
intelligence, as if he knew now what had brought 
her. He was seldom addressed down here as 
“ Doctor;” it was mostly up in the camp they gave 


A Sly Old Woman . 


*9 5 


him the honorary medical title; still some persons 
down here did so address him, and possibly they 
thought he really was a medical man. This, to his 
mind, explained the woman’s visit, — some matter 
of sickness, perhaps ; once before some one had come 
here to see him under a similar misapprehension. 

“My name is Singleton; but I’m not a doc- 
tor,” he replied, adding, “there ’s a doctor on the 
opposite side of the street, straight across from 
here. ” 

The information he had volunteered did not seem 
to interest her as he expected; for she only gave a 
kind of grunt, and sat quite still, looking at him; 
and then all round the room, as if wanting to say 
something, but not feeling quite sure how it would 
be best to begin. 

He repeated what he had just now said, thinking 
that perhaps she did not understand English very 
well ; then, going to the window, from which there 
was a view of the doctor’s house across the street, 
he drew aside the curtain. 

“Doctor over there,” he said, turning to her, and 
indicating the direction across the street. 

But she took no notice, and, instead, was now 
peering round the room in a mysterious manner, 
looking into every corner; her eyes fell on the half- 
opened door, leading from this room into the next 
one, a bedroom. She got up from her seat and moved 
part of the way towards him, then stopped. 

“Nobody there? ” she asked, in a kind of hushed 


196 


The Golden Crocodile. 


whisper, pointing to the connecting door; and from 
her singular behavior he almost began to suspect 
that she must be some poor woman, weak in her 
mind, come here from a vague idea that he, being 
a doctor, could do something for her. He an- 
swered her question mechanically, now completely 
puzzled. 

>“ Nobody there,” he replied, and shaking his head 
to add emphasis. 

The answer did not seem to satisfy her, for she 
moved across and closed the door. 

He stood resting his elbow on a corner of the 
mantelpiece, his pipe held carelessly between his 
teeth; he was wondering what was coming next, 
questioning somewhat, in his mind, too, if he had 
not better go and call the people who ran the place. 
There was a strange, glittering look, he thought, 
in the woman’s dark eyes. She shut the door, and 
turning quickly round, in an instant was beside him, 
and had said something in his ear which made him 
give a start as if a blow had struck him suddenly. 

“You help kill Stimson; me know, me see.” 
These were the words she had whispered, almost 
hissed, into his ear; following them up with an evil- 
omened smirk and chuckle as she moved a few paces 
back, and sat down on the nearest chair, watching to 
see what effect her words produced. 

The pipe dropped from his mouth, the stem shat- 
tering on the floor, as an exclamation of profound 
astonishment passed his lips, before he had the pres- 


A Sly Old Woman . 


197 


ence of mind to suppress it. In a moment he drew 
himself full up from the lounging attitude; his face 
was flushed with excitement. The feeling thrilling 
him, all through and through this moment, was not 
of fear. In the past the thought had hardly even 
suggested itself to him, that the truth as to his posi- 
tion in the affair might be difficult to make clear, if 
ever the seal of silence should be broken ; indeed, he 
had taken for granted that no one would believe him 
capable of sharing in such an act. He was angered 
now, and his judgment, at the moment, failed com- 
pletely. He recognized at once, after she had 
spoken those last words, who the woman was; he 
knew she was the owner of the cottage that Stimson 
had been taken from, for he had passed there some- 
times afterwards, and seen her, though he had since 
forgotten her. It had always been supposed there 
was no one there that night but Stimson ; but now, 
in his excitement, he forgot to even wonder how she 
knew about it. All he did at first was to storm 
senselessly, to let loose the feeling of indignation 
roused within him at the bare idea of such a charge. 
He had even gone so far as to order her out of the 
room ; for her calm assurance now only aggravated 
him, as, whenever he seemed to be looking for any 
answer from her in the pauses of his own impetuous 
flow of words, she simply confined herself to repeat- 
ing, accompanying the words with, a significant ges- 
ture, the latter half of the first sentence, “ Me know, 
me see,” that was all she said. Perhaps, old woman, 


198 


The Golden Crocodile . 


and ignorant though she was, she had gone through 
a rehearsal of this scene in her mind beforehand, 
and felt pretty confident that he would calm down 
presently. She did not move from the chair when 
he bade her go, but sat on, watching him stride up 
and down the room. 

He had ceased speaking for some time, and there 
was now a changed look in his face, — a look which 
plainly showed a growing feeling of anxiety within 
him ; he was beginning to realize how compromis- 
ing, how almost perilous his position really was, 
now that he came to look fairly into it. And the 
more he looked at it, the worse it seemed. He had 
better find out what it was the woman wanted. 

He tried to pull himself together now, although 
it was rather late to begin, and, making the best 
attempt he could to assume indifference, stopping 
in his walk, he turned and asked her what it was she 
wanted with him. 

Money, of course; but she did n’t say it in so many 
words. Men — friends of the dead man — had come, 
secretly, to Grizzly, in the summer, to trace him, 
and find out what had become of him. 

They had been to her, and offered money, much — 
money — if she would tell them what she knew. 
They were eager to avenge what had been done ; but 
she had sent them away; she had refused to say if 
she knew anything; and they had departed, swearing 
vengeance ; sooner or later they would have some one 
hanged for this, they said; there was law in other 


A Sly Old Woman. 


199 


places, even if there was none in Grizzly Hollow. 
They lived in another part of the country, and had 
left their names with her. She must send word to 
them now, or she would starve this winter. 

This was her story, jerked out in broken English, 
but running smoothly, circumstantially, along from 
start to finish ; and after she ceased speaking she sat 
watching him again, as if to judge how much of it 
had sunk into his mind. 

He had ceased his marching up and down, and 
stood again, now, leaning with his elbow resting on 
the mantelpiece. 

He was trying hard to concentrate his thoughts. 
He was staring at the fire in the blazing stove. 
Five minutes passed without another word being 
said by either. Then, suddenly, he walked over to 
the door she had come in at, opened it, and beckoned 
her to follow, which she did. 

“Go now; come this time to-morrow, ,, he said 
slowly, and as if he felt some difficulty now in 
speaking. 

A cunning look of satisfaction crossed her face; 
and it seemed as if what he had said emboldened her 
to say a final word. She stopped just as she had 
started down the narrow passage leading to the stair- 
way, and before the door had closed behind her. 

“To-morrow; sure no delay you,” she said, throw- 
ing the words at him in a threatening, menacing 
way that left her meaning unmistakable. 

He quickly closed the door behind her, and locked 


200 


The Golden Crocodile . 


it, too, — he did not want to be disturbed, — went 
over to the window and threw that open; to him the 
room was hot and stifling, although not long before 
he had felt such bitter cold. 

The night outside was calm and moonlit now; the 
snow squall that had met him coming down was gone 
away to southward, travelling along the mountain 
range. He could see it as a dark spot, resting, so it 
seemed, — though surely it was moving, — half-way 
up towards the saw-toothlike summits, the row of 
giant sentinels standing theie so ghostlike in their 
winter garb and in this light. 

The sound of tinkling sleigh-bells came through 
the still, frosty air across the snow, under which the 
street below, and the wide country out beyond, as 
well as mountains, lay buried. Some wires out in 
the street, passing opposite the window, were hum- 
ming with the fierce tension of the frost; except for 
this, everything around was quiet, — peaceful. He 
wondered, for it had seemed to him as if there was a 
hurrying, rushing movement everywhere. 

He saw the woman come out from the door be- 
low, wrapping, as she did, her shawl more closely 
round her, against the bitter cold; then pass along 
until she disappeared. Yet for awhile he still stood 
watching. At last he shut the window down again, 
and threw himself into a chair. 

While standing there beside the window, looking 
out upon the moonlit mountains, where fate had led 
him into this, as it now seemed to him, almost 


A Sly Old Woman . 


201 


devilish entanglement, he had turned the situation 
over and then over in his mind. 

What had he better do? What ought he to do? 

He never doubted the story that she told; had 
never questioned in his mind if it were true or not. 
She had seen him there; the details that she gave 
of what had happened, proved it. 

One of his first thoughts was to anticipate her 
threat by going, himself, to the authorities, and lay- 
ing all the facts before them. This, at least, would 
put himself in the right light, though it would not 
explain why he had not thought of doing so before. 
But when he remembered what doing so, perhaps, 
would mean to his associates, he gave up that idea 
at once; besides, he did not know who they were, 
except Watson, and he had gone away from Grizzly 
Hollow some time before he himself had left; so he 
remembered to have heard. 

Should he give the woman what she asked ? — 
money. But if he did, it would be as if admit- 
ting that he shared the crime, and would bring 
him so into her power; a daily, almost hourly, fear 
of fresh demands or threats would be hanging over 
him. 

If he defied her, bid her go when she called again, 
what next? There was not a doubt, only one thing 
could follow then — his own arrest, until the spring 
came and a search could then be made. The woman’s 
story showed she knew which trail the party took 
that night, and this would quickly guide any 


202 


The Golden Crocodile. 


searcher’s thoughts towards the canyon. They might 
be hunting weeks before they found the body, but 
find it in time, with money enough to spend, they 
must. Besides, another thing, and this the most 
important, in his mind, of all; if they arrested him 
upon the woman’s story, then and in that case, since 
his only answer possible to the charge against him- 
self must be that his association with the matter was 
involuntary, and that, so far from sharing in the 
deed, he was there trying to prevent it ; he must, in 
self-defence, make a statement of all the circum- 
stances, from first to last, showing how he came to 
be mixed up in it by utterly misapprehending the 
probable outcome of the meeting. 

Shortly, it meant that he must, of necessity, 
and in order to save himself, give away the whole 
thing, and the names of the persons present at the 
time. 

How could he do this? How risk, perhaps, the 
lives of these others? The situation to him was 
perplexing, frightfully. There did not seem a way 
to turn. He thought and thought, and each time 
he had gone all over it again, he was just back where 
he started from. 

It was perplexity, the feeling of being in a hope- 
less situation, in one from which no exercise of 
intelligence seemed able to extricate him; that bore 
upon, that weighed him down just now. The ques- 
tion of arrest, of being charged with this crime, even 
though, as he knew, the circumstantial evidence was 


A Sly Old Woman . 203 

so terribly against him, occupied in his thoughts not 
first, but second place. 

True, we generally read that men, young or old, 
perfectly innocent though they may know them- 
selves to be, suffer frightful mental anguish at the 
bare idea of such a thing as going to jail, — in 
books, that is, we find it so. But Harry Singleton, 
being a real man in real life, did not suffer thus, 
not, at any rate, for the conventional reason that 
he felt the jail doors were yawning for him; the 
thought of that had passed away with the first sharp 
shock. What wore upon him now was that his rea- 
son showed no way on earth out of his hellish diffi- 
culty, as it truly seemed to be. 

Hour after hour passed as he sat there, thinking, 
thinking, but all without result; at last, in sheer 
despair, he went to bed. 

The light of morning only brought the whole 
thing back at once; but with sleep had come more 
vigor to his mind. There must be something, he 
could do, and by-and-by he saw what that was; he 
must leave Glorietta at once, for a time, at least; 
until he could communicate with Watson, and let 
him know the situation; further than that he did not 
look just at this moment. Five minutes after he 
first thought of this, his mind was fixedly made up 
to do it. 

Luckily, just now, there was a comparative quiet 
in the Elk Mountain excitement. Temporarily, at 
least, people seemed to have somewhat exhausted 


204 


The Golden Crocodile . 


themselves ; but that was understood to be merely a 
rest before the anticipated furious rush with the 
opening of the spring. 

This was fortunate; but there was something else 
to be considered, — some one, the only person to 
whom he must confide the cause of his abrupt 
departure. 

The woman — what of her? Should he see her 
and put her off until to-morrow, or should he go 
away at six o’clock this very evening, by the train 
leaving then? She would not come to his rooms 
till nine o’clock, — that was the time appointed; by 
then he would be far away, if he left at six. 


CHAPTER X. 

LOVE. 

I T was his habit, for Singleton, whenever he went 
up to the ranch, to walk into the house without 
any ceremony, and if no one happened to be in the 
big front room, to wait a little while, — some one 
would be sure to come presently. 

This afternoon he had come up nervous and ex- 
cited. Only yesterday he was here, and now he had 
come up again — come to say that he was going 
away very unexpectedly, and could not tell when 
he might return. The distracting incident of last 
night had brought to a point, in his mind, some- 
thing that he had intended to do for weeks past, but 
had somehow kept putting off and off. There was 
no doubt that he was very much in love with the 
little girl up there; and, indeed, lately he had made 
no disguise of the fact, although he had never yet 
given expression to his feelings in words. But it 
was his intention to do so, before he left Glorietta 
a few hours hence. 

He had never stopped to ask himself the question 
whether it was a wise thing for him to do, — to marry 
a girl brought up in this far-off and out-of-the-way 


206 


The Golden Crocodile . 


place, and take her, as he naturally intended, sooner 
or later, to his own country, and amongst his own 
people, — never had asked himself whether she would 
not be unhappy in a strange land, and amongst his 
people, who, at best, would be not at all unlikely 
to receive their new relative with inward contempt, 
whatever their outward show of cordiality, or, as 
being a better word where woman is the subject, let 
us say affection, might be. 

He had never thought of this, and if he had, being 
by nature rather a self-willed young fellow, besides 
having some latent feelings of contempt for highly- 
organized social life, — feelings which his life out 
here had certainly not failed to expand, — probably 
it would have made no difference. Men like him, 
and at his age, in a far-off place, which has become 
half a new home, do not stop to think of trifles when 
they are in love. 

It was his custom to walk into the house and wait 
until some one should come, which was seldom long. 
To-day he walked in as usual, but felt too restless to 
sit down or even wait; and almost immediately he 
started to find Maggie. The house being a rambling 
up-and-downstairs structure, there was no telling 
where she might be; he would go to the kitchen and 
ask ; but directly he opened the door of the room he 
was in, the sound of a female voice reached his ear, 
coming from a room across the hallway. Notwith- 
standing that the door was closed, something of what 
was being said forced itself upon his hearing; so 


Love. 


20 7 


startling was it, too, and of such momentous interest 
to himself, that he felt there could be no wrong in 
his listening. He recognized at once the broken, 
foreign accents of the very woman whose threat was 
now hanging like a sword above him; heard his own 
name mentioned once, twice, many times. It was 
more than human nature could stand; he moved a 
little closer. 

To whom could she be talking? She was telling 
the whole story, about seeing him there that night, 
of seeing them all go off with the muffled man, up 
the trail leading to the canyon, and seeing them 
all come back, hours afterwards, without him; then 
about the dead man’s associates coming to her, just 
as she had told before. She finished presently, 
and for nearly a minute there was only silence. 
Then some words were said by whoever her com- 
panion was, in a very low tone, almost a whisper, so 
low that he could not at first distinguish whose voice 
it was, until presently she spoke a trifle louder, and 
then he knew that it was the little girl he had him- 
self come up to tell this very story to, and to tell 
her only, why he must go away so suddenly. Until 
that moment he had supposed that the woman’s com- 
panion must be Maggie’s old father. 

He thought he heard the word “Wait,” followed 
by an assent from the woman, and then a soft foot- 
fall coming towards the door. He slipped quickly 
back to the room he had been waiting in, trying his 
utmost — for his feelings were wound up to a pitch 


208 


The Golden Crocodile. 


of almost desperation — to assume a careless atti- 
tude ; but there was no need of it, for no one came. 
The door across there opened, and then the sound of 
Maggie’s footsteps reached him, going towards the 
stairs beyond. There was another sound that 
reached him too, — a sob, and then another, and it 
sent a thrill all through his frame. A furious passion 
raged within him now; a frantic desire seized him 
to rush in upon the woman : his madness might have 
led him to do almost anything. He had almost lost 
control of himself; his hand was stretched towards 
the door. But at that very moment he heard the 
footstep coming back; it checked him; he knew he 
ought not to force himself upon them. Perhaps this 
time she would come in where he was; he drew him- 
self up. But no, she went back in there again ; the 
door was shut. 

What were they doing? There was no use try- 
ing not to — he must know; again he slipped into 
the passage, listened. 

Chink, chink, money, — that was what she went 
for; something from her own little savings to tie the 
old hag’s tongue, and for his sake, too. His face 
was flushed, his cheeks were burning. It was gold, 
too, she was giving, for he heard the ring of one 
piece falling on the floor. He was almost blinded 
now with rage. 

The woman seemed dissatisfied; she asked for 
more. 

“Four hundred dollars not enough; one thousand 


Love. 


209 


must be,” he plainly heard, then Maggie’s voice, in 
piteous tones, pleading with her. It was everything 
she had up there — everything. Next week, by that 
time she would try and get some more; she had some 
jewelry she could sell to make up the thousand. 

“You give me, I sell,” the grasping old brute 
answered in a moment. 

“I can’t get it; father has it locked up for me,” 
she answered, sobbing. “ But you can take this 
brooch, if you like.” 

A grunt of satisfaction from the woman showed 
that she had speedily possessed herself of the poor 
child’s trinket. 

He ground his teeth with helpless rage. 

“I ’ll give her one in place of it that ’s worth its 
weight in diamonds,” he swore inwardly. 

He was worked up to such a pitch he felt al- 
most distracted. Would it be right to break in 
there upon them, to bring confusion on the little 
girl who might be doing this for his sake, merely 
from the goodness of her heart? He clenched his 
fists at the thought of how this cunning hag must 
have watched his coming there, guessed his purpose, 
and have seen her chance. 

But there were sounds of moving ; some one was 
coming out. He slipped back to the other room and 
stood before the fire again, in a state of feverish 
uncertainty. What if they should both come in 
here; what should he do; what should he say? 

But they passed on down the passage, and then he 

14 


210 


The Golden Crocodile . 


heard the opening and the shutting of a door he knew 
that led outside; he guessed the woman must have 
gone; and soon he knew she had, for he saw her 
shawl-clad figure moving past the window looking 
to the front. She had a basket on her arm, as if 
she had come to sell something, and was floundering 
through the snow, down the steep pathway leading 
to the road below. A boy whom he had noticed 
once before, with a pony and a small rude sleigh, 
was waiting there. He must have brought her, for 
she joined him; and then they drove off towards the 
town below. 

He was waiting, restless, agitated, for Maggie to 
return, for he had heard her go upstairs ; but when 
she came she passed into the other room again. 

The time was come; he must go and tell her 
everything. 

The door stood somewhat ajar; a glance showed 
her to him, sitting there with a sad, mournful look 
upon her little face ; the handkerchief she had just 
taken from her eyes. He longed to rush in and fold 
her to his heart, without a word of explanation. 
Why should he wait to ask a formal question that 
he knew the answer to already; and surely she had 
known for long that he had loved her; his acts, if 
not his words, must have told her so. 

She gave a start so sudden that a little cry escaped 
her as she turned, on hearing footsteps, and saw him 
enter. The blood rushed to her little face, and her 
cheeks, which just before were pale and colorless, 


Love. 


21 I 


were scarlet with confusion. His coming at such 
a* moment frightened her; it seemed so strange, 
almost a dream. She could only stammer out a 
welcome. 

“I — I did n’t know you were here,” she said ; and 
then, as if with a feeling of anxiety, — anxiety, per- 
haps, lest he should have heard anything of what had 
been just passing in that very room, — she added, 
quickly, and trying to appear composed, “ Have you 
been waiting long? ” 

“N-no, not very long,” he replied, with a strange- 
ness in his tone that she quickly caught; it was 
the effort he was making to control himself, to 
speak to her in less passionate language than the 
whirl of his feelings almost forced him to; but he 
launched headlong into the subject with which his 
mind and heart were overflowing. 

“I must ask you to forgive me, Maggie,” — he 
often called her by that name; nearly everybody did 
who knew her well, — “ for something I have done 
since I came here; but the temptation was too great. 
I yielded; what passed between that woman and 
yourself I heard — ” 

Her face was pale and scarlet now, by turns ; but 
it was hidden behind the handkerchief she pressed 
upon it ; she rose as if to leave the room. 

He seized her hand. 

“ Maggie,” he cried passionately, “you cannot go, 
you must hear what I have come to-day to say; a 
story like that woman has been telling you, though 


212 


The Golden Crocodile. 


mine is not the same as hers. But it was too noble- 
hearted of you to try and stop her villanous tongue,” 
— and here his voice was very shaky, as his thoughts 
dwelt for a moment on the little girl’s sacrifice for 
his sake. 

He told his story of the past, — just what the reader 
knows, — and then of what had brought him here to- 
day: to tell her of his love, before he left a few 
hours hence, and his amazement, on coming here, to 
find the very person, from whose knowledge he must 
flee for a time. 

The words poured from him in a torrent ; he hur- 
ried almost breathlessly along, eager to come to the 
very point. He had loved her for a long, long time; 
but the lesson he had learned that afternoon had 
fanned his quiet love to a passion. 

She had pressed the handkerchief to her face, as 
he spoke of what he overheard: a maiden’s shame 
that he should have learned her secret feelings. But 
when he passed from that, and told her of what really 
happened up there at the camp ; gradually she moved 
her hand away; a look of happiness quickly over- 
spread her face. He saw it, too, for he drew a little 
closer; and when he finished, quickly read his answer 
in the sweet, trustful eyes which looked up into his. 
There was no need for words ; he only folded her in 
a long, sweet love-embrace. 

But their delight was only for a time; soon the 
remembrance of his going away this very evening 
came rushing to her mind, and she broke into a flood 


Love . 


213 

of weeping, sobbing — while he drew her closer to 
him — as' if her heart would break. 

“ Oh, must you — must you go away and 1-leave 
me. I kn-know you’ll for-g-get all about me 
when you’re gone. You’ll see other g-girls, and 
then you’ll only 1-laugh when you think of m-me, 
and that y-you should have ever th-thought you 
loved me, j-just because y-you were all alone here 
and d-didn’t see any other g-girls. I kn — you’ll 
never come back.” She sobbed, as she buried her 
face in her handkerchief. 

He drew her still closer to him, and stroked her 
hair; somehow it seemed as it sometimes had be- 
fore, as if she were only a child, and he a man of 
mature years. 

“Why should you say that, darling; why should 
you think that ? ” he protested fondly. “You know 
I’ve loved you for a long, long time; if I hadn’t 
really loved you, why should I have come here to see 
you and say so, before going away? 

“What should I see in others that I wouldn’t find 
in you, darling; why do you think so little of your- 
self? Do you think that every one is happy and 
clever who lives a long way off in some big place? 
Why I think you’re cleverer than them all; they 
couldn’t do lots of things you do; they don’t know 
lots of things you know; and I ’m sure they ’re not 
half so sweet. Kiss me again, darling, and say 
you’re sorry for being so unkind to me.” 

She lifted up her little face; and as he gazed fondly 


214 


The Golden Crocodile. 


into her eyes, he saw once more that indefinable look 
which, to him unknown, perhaps, had first drawn 
him to her; it thrilled him through and through as 
he kissed her rapturously. 

“You never t-told me where you were g-going 
to,” she began again, still sobbing; “ why c-could n’t 
you stop here, and g-go up into one of the c-caves 
in the f-foothills? Nobody c-could find you.” 

The suggestion was so simple and childish, and 
though made so seriously withal, considering the 
circumstances, so ludicrous, that it was impossible 
for him to help smiling; but she did not see him, 
for her face was buried as he held her in his arms. 

“Why c-could n’t you do that?” she repeated 
pleadingly, while he went on smoothing her hair. 

“I must go far away, darling,” he replied; 
“somewhere, a long way off. It wouldn’t do to 
stop anywhere near here; but I won’t stay long. 
Things will be arranged so that I can come back to 
you; and if they ’re not, then you must come to me 
instead. I ’m going to England.” 

This announcement, conveying to her mind, as it 
did, the idea of a hopeless separation, only led to a 
renewed outburst of sobbing. 

“You’d come to me there if I asked you to, 
wouldn’t you?” he said caressingly. 

“I c-could come if f-father brought me.” 

“Yes, darling, of course I mean if your father 
brought you.” 

“ But how c-could I 1-leave poor father here, to 


Love. 


21 5 


live all alone ?” and this thought, which seemed 
only just then to have occurred to her as an inev- 
itable consequence of the promise she had lately 
given to him, seemed to distress her sorely, for 
which he could offer her at first but little consola- 
tion, until he thought of something. 

“ We could come back afterwards and see your 
father sometimes,” he said. 

“ Oh, would you do that, would you ? ” she cried, 
now, for the moment, looking up cheerfully. 

But there were many things for him to do in 
Glorietta before he went, — business matters to be 
left in some kind of order, and but a couple of hours 
to do it all in, after he got back from here. The 
prospect of this separation from the loving little 
heart, so ready without a moment’s hesitation, as he 
had such ample proof that day, to sacrifice herself 
for his sake, indeed distressed him far more, really, 
than his words and manner seemed to show, and 
sorely, too, because he truly felt for her; it made 
him dread to say good-bye, but it must be done. 

“Here is my address in London, darling,” he said, 
as he handed her something hastily scribbled at a 
table near by, while she sat on, weeping silently, fore- 
seeing that the dreaded time had come for him to go. 

“ Now give me one long, last, sweet kiss, and say 
you ’ll write to me every day, and tell me all you ’re 
thinking about, and what you ’re doing, and try to 
think I ’ll be back again quite soon, it won’t be for 
long, I ’m sure. There, don’t cry so.” 


2l6 


The Golden Crocodile. 


Another minute, and with his hat bashed down 
over his eyes, he had hurried from the house. 

At nine o’clock that evening there was a woman 
knocking at that door where she knocked last night. 
She had been talking to herself as she came along, 
congratulating herself upon the piece of good for- 
tune come in her way which seemed to promise, for 
a time, at least, to be a source of revenue. She 
could make enough out of this, after dividing it with 
her son-in-law, her daughter’s husband, whose more 
active brain had shown her how to profit by her 
knowledge, to enable her to spend her last days in 
sunny Italy. Already she had bought a strong box 
to hold the four hundred dollars she had got to-day; 
next week that would be more than doubled from the 
self-same source; while to-night she would surely 
get a big sum at once; but she would not ask for too 
much at first; she could come again, and she had 
chuckled to herself at that rich thought. 

She was rapping at the door. She listened. 
No answer. Last night she had to rap twice too; 
yes, she remembered that. Again. 

A disappointed-looking woman, using some strong 
language in Italian, stepped out into the street ten 
minutes later, from the side door of that hotel. 

In the smoking compartment of a Pullman car; 
the very last one drawn by the engine, puffing there 
ahead with exhaustion almost life-like, as the long 
train crept slowly up the winding, steep ascent 


Love . 


217 


towards the entrance to the tunnel at the summit 
of the pass, a hundred miles to southward; at that 
moment, sat Harry Singleton. He was listening, 
or so appeared, to a Chicago drummer who was tell- 
ing the English tourist, as he took his companion 
to be, what life was like here out West. But the 
listener’s mind was far away; he was thinking of 
that last sweet, appealing look in little Maggie’s eyes 
as he left her; it haunted him. His fellow-traveller 
left to go to bed ; but he went upon the open plat- 
form of the car, and stood there, looking back. 


CHAPTER XI. 


TRAVEL AND TRAVAIL. 

I T was a drizzly evening in early English spring, 
when the train, which had brought, amongst its 
other passengers from Liverpool, a number of that 
morning’s arrivals by the White Star liner from New 
York, glided smoothly into Euston Station. 

Through the murky atmosphere — not, indeed, a 
fog, a somewhat more diluted mixture of smoke and 
reeking moisture, but which, had there been a little 
wind, would have quickly lightened — the lamps 
were struggling hard to make things look as cheer- 
ful as they could, in spite of such adverse circum- 
stances. 

This was London, much abused for its climate by 
those who have not as yet faced a hot wind on the 
streets of Melbourne, been rocked to sleep by a 
howling blizzard on the eighteenth story of a Chicago 
sky-scraper, or tasted the flavor of a sirocco round 
the Mediterranean. 

But this is all meteorology; let us turn to the 
sunburnt young fellow who is pointing out to the 
porter his two trunks, which, like many others there, 
are plastered over with steamer labels. 


Travel and Travail . 


219 


It was Harry Singleton, and, judging from his 
looks, the coming home after nearly three years' 
absence had not, so far, aroused within him very 
much enthusiasm. Perhaps it was the gloom just 
now depressing him, — the change from brighter 
skies beyond. 

It was not quite wise of him to come back at this 
season, and he knew that well enough; but it was 
necessary to take some risk. Letters that he got at 
Queenstown yesterday were disappointing, too. On 
leaving New York he had sent a message home to 
say that he was coming; but, unknown to him, his 
mother and sisters had gone abroad, were staying 
in Italy, and would remain on there until the end 
of May, the house in Hyde Park Square shut up. 
These facts he had learned from those letters; for 
that telegram of his from New York had found his 
people out, at last, in Rome. 

This news had been a great disappointment to 
him, for although of late he had been somewhat 
erratic as a correspondent, that was, perhaps, because 
he felt that it was difficult to keep up the interest of 
those at a distance in persons they had never seen, 
amidst surroundings they could hardly picture; still, 
the amount of his correspondence was not a correct 
measure of his affection, and to find no one here, 
after coming all this way, — no one in London, 
that was, for his other relatives were living so far 
in the country he could not visit them until the busi- 
ness he had come about was fairly started, — this, 


220 


The Golden Crocodile . 


coupled with the effect of the change in climate, did 
not induce in him an exhilarated frame of mind 
just now. 

He had worried himself, too, not a little, won- 
dering how everything was going on in Glori- 
etta. Soon after leaving, he had passed through 
those various mental stages, which are pretty 
sure to overtake any enthusiast, whether he be a 
philosopher from out of his cave, or a mere 
man in the pursuit of vulgar gain, who neglects 
to change his point of observation for a time, at 
least. 

As the distance between him, and the spot where, 
for months past, he had been talking, thinking, 
dreaming almost, about the prospective richness of 
the claims adjacent to the Golden Crocodile, hour 
by hour increased; there came over him, at first, a 
sudden rush of doubt; a questioning in his mind; 
had he not taken too much for granted? Was every- 
thing really going to turn out as they expected, just 
because every one in Glorietta kept on saying it was 
sure to? So strongly did this doubt possess him for 
the whole of one day, as he travelled onwards, that 
had he been able to, he would almost certainly have 
turned back again. Gradually, however, this passed 
away, and gave place to feelings of renewed confi- 
dence, as he argued with himself that it was impos- 
sible everybody could be wrong; it was not as if he 
were going simply by his own individual judgment 
in the matter. This satisfied him pretty well; but 


Travel and Travail \ 


22 T 


he never regained those feelings of complete assur- 
ance on the subject that he had had for months, and 
right up to the hour of his departure ; and he fully 
made up his mind to get back there as quick as pos- 
sible, as quick as the business he had come about 
could be done. He was thinking of this now, 
sitting in the cab, as it wound in and out amongst 
the streets between Euston Station and the address 
he had given to the driver, — the chambers of a 
friend, at No. — Fig Tree Court, The Temple; after 

seeing whom he meant to drive on to the Hotel, 

off the Strand. 

Singleton had not come to England merely to get 
away from Glorietta; there was no need for him to 
have come so far, if that alone had been his object; 
it was a much more important purpose that had 
brought him. 

On the day following the old woman’s threatening 
visit to him there in Glorietta, he had made inquiries 
amongst people who would be likely to know of 
Watson’s whereabouts since he left Grizzly Hollow, 
and, to his great surprise, had learned that he was 
supposed to be in London. Some one had heard 
that a claim in Mexico he held a large share in had 
turned out almost a bonanza, and it was the news of 
this which had caused him to leave Grizzly Hollow 
suddenly, some weeks before Singleton and his old 
partner left themselves. The reason for Watson’s 
going was not known at the time ; but this news had 
come back afterwards, with the further news that he 


222 


The Golden Crocodile. 


had gone to London or to Paris with some man, a 
company promoter, to sell the mine. All this, when 
he first heard it, had come as a piece of startling 
information to Singleton. He was quite unable for 
a little while to realize the fact that the rough, burly 
Western miner, Ed Watson, under whose determined 
leadership, in that masked raid that night last sum- 
mer out there in the wilds, the Grizzly Hollow 
miners had taken such summary and unlawful ven- 
geance on the wretched Stimson; was probably, as 
presently he pictured the man to himself, by this 
time, rigged out in a frock coat, kid gloves, and bell- 
topper, walking quietly about the streets of London, 
or, if not walking, lounging, possibly, in the bar of 
some resort there for Americans, sipping a cock- 
tail; while he, Singleton, the innocent sharer of the 
tragedy, was being harassed and threatened over 
here. These were thoughts which had come to him 
at Glorietta, and promptly determined him as to the 
direction he would take. 

In coming after Watson, he had not formed any 
very definite ideas as to what the next move would 
be, supposing that the man should be found ; and a 
question having reference to this feature of the situ- 
ation was one of the earliest put to him by his 
friend, or relative rather, — for he was a distant 
cousin, — Robert Corning, in whose chambers in The 
Temple, No. — Fig Tree Court, he was sitting half- 
an-hour after leaving Euston, as soon as the barrister 
had recovered his astonishment at his relative's 


Travel and Travail. 


223 

sudden reappearance, and an exchange of inquiries 
and greetings had been got over. 

Robert Coming’s face, as he sat listening to the 
story, bore, at first, a scarcely disguised smile of 
incredulity; for Singleton had no sooner started than 
he began to suspect that the youthful wanderer, in 
search of health, had picked up some of the humor- 
ous ways for which the natives over there, as he had 
heard, were noted, and was merely trying, with a 
tall Yankee yarn, to test the credulity of a stay-at- 
home cousin. But as the tale proceeded, the listener 
soon gathered, from his manner, that he was really 
in earnest; and it filled him with amazement. His 
legal mind, too, quickly saw the unfortunate situa- 
tion that his cousin had drifted into. 

“ What did you think of doing over here? What 
was your idea about this man, — this leader of the 
gang, Watson? Suppose you do find him here or in 
Paris,” he asked presently, when the tale was over, 
as he now paced slowly up and down the room with 
his hands behind his back, thinking. “I don’t see 
exactly, at this moment, what your next move would 
be. What had you in mind? You can hardly 
expect that he ’ll go back there and clear you by 
charging himself with the murder. From your 
description of him, I shouldn’t think he’d be so 
accommodating. Much more likely to let you 
stand the brunt of it, and keep well out of the way 
himself.” 

The question was a puzzle to Singleton; he had 


224 


The Golden Crocodile . 


put the same one to himself already a number of 
times without being able to arrive at any very 
definite conclusion. 

“ Yes, that is the difficulty, I know; and it ’s been 
bothering me ever since I left. But what I thought 
was, that I’d let him know the situation, and see if 
he has any suggestion to make. I confess I don’t 
see what he can do about it; the only thing is, I 
don’t want to have to let the whole thing out, 
though I ’m hanged if I can see how it ’s to be 
avoided sooner or later,” he concluded, scratching 
his head. 

There was an interval of silence, during which 
Robert Corning continued his walk up and down. 

“If you have come to me for advice, Harry,” he 
said, stopping suddenly and turning to him, “what 
I would say is this : — 

“Clear out of the place altogether. Don’t go 
back there at all. You ’re away from it, then keep 
away. Of course, I take the story to be just as 
you tell it ; I don’t go into the question of what 
the woman’s evidence may be worth. But the long 
and short of it is, you ’re in a mess for which some- 
one else is to blame, and you ’re going to ask them 
to get themselves hanged, or to run the risk of it, 
as a convenience to you, and to clear up your posi- 
tion. My advice, as the matter strikes me, is to 
keep away from the place. You ’re out of it, 
keep out of it. If you have to go abroad again for 
your health, there are other places you can go to. 


Travel and Travail. 


225 

But I’ll think it over more fully between this and 
to-morrow morning. 

“I ’ll have to leave you now, as I ’ve an appoint- 
ment to keep; in fact, it’s a little past the time 
already. Come in again in the morning, will you ; 
then I ’ll tell you what arrangements I can make to 
get this man Watson hunted up in Paris. There 
ought to be no difficulty in finding him. • I expect 
the Americans of that class all patronize certain 
places, and he ’ll be found at one or another of them, 
if a look-out be kept. Where are you going to put 
up?” 

“I ’m going to the Hotel; the cab with my 

luggage is still waiting outside, and to-morrow I 
shall begin looking about. One of the passengers 
I met coming over, who goes backwards and forwards 
between this and New York a great deal, gave me a 
list of places here where I ’d be most likely to find 
Americans. You might find out for me if any 
Mexican Mining Company with his name connected 
with it has come out in the past three or four months 
in London. Will you do that for me ? I wish you ’d 
been able to come and dine with me to-night. 
Where’s Sinclair now? I think I’ll go and look 
him up.” 

“ You ’ll not find him if you do; he’s married, 
and lives out at Sydenham, or somewhere near there, 
somewhere near the Crystal Palace.” 

Three weeks passed by, and Singleton, as far as 
the object of his coming was concerned, he was no 

15 


226 


The Golden Crocodile. 


further advanced than on the first day. Every hotel 
and every cafe which had been suggested to him, or 
he had himself thought of, he had visited half-a- 
dozen times or more without success, and with a like 
result in response to inquiries made in Paris. 

Roundabout Northumberland Avenue and Charing 
Cross, that great centre for visitors, he spent much 
time, being impressed with the belief that some- 
where in that vicinity a man like Watson would 
sooner or later be met with, if he really was in 
London, which he was beginning to doubt. He 
was getting tired of the search, impatient at the 
result. Letters which were reaching him from 
Glorietta made him anxious to be back there ; spring 
would soon be opening in the Elk Mountains ; and 
although no change had taken place in business 
affairs since his leaving, there were signs which 
made him restless. At last he made up his mind 
to a course of action; ten days hence, if nothing 
transpired in the mean time, he would start back. 
He was going to do now what he might have done 
without coming over at all; he was going to run 
the risk of giving the woman the hush-money she 
demanded. After all, it was a matter for diplomacy 
rather than for heroic treatment; he had come to 
look at it now in that light. He could keep her 
quiet until he could settle up his affairs, and then 
leave the place for good. 

The change from the wild West to the centre of 
the worlds civilization had not in the least cooled 


Travel and Travail. 


22 7 


his love for the little girl out there, whose letter he 
looked forward to, as each mail came in, with un- 
diminished ardor; and as he walked the streets, 
crowded with the gay throng, come with the early 
London season, his thoughts were often far away, 
his eyes were not always looking at the ceaseless 
procession close at hand. 

Perhaps if they had been he might somewhat 
sooner than it so happened have found the man he 
was so anxious to meet; but he was to have some 
luck at last, in this matter, at any rate. 

Contrary to his first expectations, the coming 
home, the change of climate, had, after the first few 
days, seemed to agree very well with him ; and he 
had gone so far as to believe that he could venture 
to return permanently. Filled with this idea, he 
had even been looking at houses which might suit 
them when he came back. One at Sydenham, not 
very far from the Crystal Palace, with a very fine 
view, attracted him especially. It was a costly 
place, and one he could not have thought of taking 
with the moderate fortune that he had inherited; 
but since his success in the Elk Mountain claims, it 
would be quite within his means, so he considered. 

In selecting it, perhaps, too, he was influenced by 
the thought of what would please the little woman 
who would be its mistress. He could not bring her 
to a place where, as at her home, the sun rose each 
morning into a blue sky from behind great snow- 
capped peaks; but here, sometimes, at least, she 


228 


The Golden Crocodile. 


could see the golden, or fiery -tinted, as it might be, 
globe rising, if not over the works of God, at least 
of man, — the mighty human wilderness below. 

It wanted but four days until the date of his de- 
parture. For the past week he had virtually given 
up the search, and devoted his time to looking up 
such friends who were within reach as he had not 
already met, talking jovially to them of the flying 
trip back he was making, and of his intention to 
return and settle down. 

Amongst his letters that morning he found one 
from a pleasant fellow-passenger whose acquaintance 
he had made in coming over, saying that the writer 
had accidentally learned of his leaving again by next 
Saturday’s steamer, and would he come and dine 

with him the following evening at the Cafe , 

Regent Street. 

The place named was widely known, and had 
been several times visited by him in the search for 
Watson ; and, strange as it turned out, that acciden- 
tal invitation, coming almost at the last moment, 
led up to his at length meeting the very person he 
had been looking for. 

The little party, for there were other guests besides 
himself at the dinner, late in the evening, had come 
down from a private room upstairs, and were passing 
towards the outer doorway, when a remark coming 
from a group of three men, seated at one of the little 
marble-topped tables at one side of the room, arrested 
his attention; the voice somehow seemed familiar to 


Travel and Travail . 


229 


him. These men were playing dominoes ; a glance 
told him that they were Americans, and from their 
style he could guess they were from somewhere in 
the far West. Two of them had their hats laid on 
the couch beside them; the third, the man who had 
just spoken, wore his. The last was shuffling round 
the counters, preparatory to a new game, and had 
made a remark, in no very gentle tones, about his 
bad luck in the last. 

Singleton stopped suddenly, looked over at him. 
Could it be that the coarse face surmounted by the 
bell-topper, and below which the huge diamond shirt- 
stud sparkled, the man over there, dressed in clothes 
made by a London tailor, was the very same man 
whose big shoulder so quickly burst the flimsy lock 
on old Widow Galeazzi’s cottage door last summer, 
far over there in Grizzly Hollow? It seemed impos- 
sible to connect the one man with two situations so 
totally unlike. But it was Watson, there was no 
doubt about it now ; he had spoken again ; that was 
his voice, whatever else there might be difficult to 
realize. 

He strode impulsively across; he would have been 
more excited at the meeting had it come some 
weeks ago, before his other plans were made, but 
still he was sufficiently excited. He might have 
waited for the game to end, but forgot to think of 
that. 

“I beg your pardon, but your name's Watson, 
isn't it? ” he asked quickly, as he reached the spot. 


230 


The Golden Crocodile . 


The man stared at him with a look of something 
like suspicion, for bunko men sometimes thus intro- 
duce themselves even here. 

The change in costume made almost as much 
difference in Singleton as in that of the man him- 
self; for just a moment he was puzzled. Then came 
a loud guffaw of recognition, with some choice min- 
ing-camp expletives, all understood as hearty greet- 
ing by those who knew the vernacular, but not 
necessary for publication, not all of them, at least. 

“By G — , blame me if it ain’t Harry Singleton,” 
he roared, so loud that the people at the neighbor- 
ing tables stopped a moment and looked round to 
see what the excitement was about ; the ex-miner of 
Grizzly Hollow being just for the moment in fancy, 
no doubt, back at Mike Donovan’s saloon over there, 
and paying as much attention to the throng around 
him here as he would have to the presence of the half- 
dozen habitues of Mike’s back room. 

“ Say, boys, let me make you acquainted with an 
old pal of mine,” he said, turning to his two com- 
panions after the first outburst was over; and the 
ceremony was quickly gone through. 

There was a scene an hour later, when Singleton 
at last managed to get the man sufficiently to him- 
self, an opportunity for which he had been impa- 
tiently and anxiously waiting, and by which time it 
was past two o’clock, and the ex-miner far from 
being as clear-headed as he was that night at Grizzly; 
but Singleton could not wait until the morning; he 


Travel and Travail . 


231 

got the man into a quiet corner, and launched out 
with the tale. 

But it did not last for long; the recital of it 
seemed to thoroughly arouse the listener, who broke 
in suddenly : — 

“Wha’at?” he cried, interrupting, “do you tell 
me George Davis never give you the straight of 
that ? ” 

“What do you mean?” Singleton asked quickly. 

“ Never told you we just turned him loose. Stim- 
son ain’t dead, no more ’n you ’re dead. Well, I ’ll 
be dog goned, that was too bad of George, keepin’ 
you fooled like that ! ” 

Singleton was so much astonished for the moment 
he only sat and listened. 

“I ’d best just tell you how it all was,” began the 
ex-leader. “You see, we was angry with George 
for bringin’ a sucker like you — and you was a sucker 
then, as you’ll admit — to that meetin’ ; and when 
we saw how you was kicking up there on the canyon, 
we just figured you ’d go next day an’ give the hull 
thing away, if we didn’t make out he was dead; we 
know’d that ’ud keep you quiet. Why, when we 
draw’d them lots, Davis an’ Mike an’ me know’d 
which numbers was cornin’ ; they never draw’d out 
of the bag you all put in; they’d another bag. 
Them as was picked out was the ones could run a 
thing like that without wantin’ to do any killin’. 
There warn’t ’nough to justify it. ’T was n’t reason- 
able in a case like that. We ’d caucussed and fixed 


2 3 2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


it all before the meeting a few of us had ; only George 
Davis went an’ slip in your number too, at the last; 
and when we see what was done, as how you was 
drawn, too, why we had to keep up the game. Of 
course we ’d ha’ made a play up there ourselves, 
anyway, to frighten the man.” That last was not 
the word Mr. Watson used ; but his was rather too 
strong for publication, for his whole style had slipped 
back into that of the mining camp. Mentally, just 

now, he was not in the Cafe , Regent Street, 

but in Grizzly Hollow. 

“We’d have made a play ourselves about puttin’ 
him over, to scare him well before letting him go, 
only you saved us that trouble, though we did make 
some play with him too, after we left you,” at the 
recollection of which the ex-leader, now completely 
himself again, laughed rather heartily. 

Singleton sat and listened, with profound astonish- 
ment, to the utterly unsuspected truth which had 
at last been made known to him, and the knowledge 
of which would have saved him so many hours of 
painful uncertainty. He felt indignant, too, very 
indignant, as soon as the first sense of immense 
satisfaction had passed, not against the man he was 
at this moment with, but against the storekeeper 
Davis, who had thus, for private reasons of his own, 
and without the least regard for his, Singleton’s 
feelings, kept him in ignorance all this time. 

“You was going to ask, I expect,” Watson went 
on, “how we fixed up about what you heard falling. 


Travel and Travail. 


2 33 


Well, that weren’t difficult. After we’d turned 
him loose, an’ put him on the wood-cutters’ trail, 
going down by the Flaming Gorge, — there ’s a trail 
from up there, top of the canyon, used by them 
people going down that way, and brings you to the 
railroad in about forty miles; maybe you know 
that?” 

Singleton said he had heard of it, but never had 
been that way. 

“ Anyway, that ’s where we let him loose, tellin’ 
him to get the train down below an’ keep agoin’. 
He was a pretty badly scared man, too, I think. 
Then we got a log what was left some time by 
the wood-cutters when they was using the old 
slide up there, rolled it in the horse blanket we ’d 
had around him, tying some rope round that, an’ 
over she went. That ’s what you heard. You was 
listenin’ for a man tumblin’ over, and you heard it 
all right. Feels kind of strange sitting here an’ 
talkin’ about these things don’t it? 

“Hang it all, though,” he went on, “that was too 
d — d bad of Davis. Why, when we was leaving last 
summer for Mexico, me and the others, I drops in to 
see him, and I asks about you, asks if he ’d seen 
you lately. Then I says, as we were n’t cornin’ 
back any more, was going a long ways off, we didn’t 
care if he told you how that thing was; and I 
said I wanted you to know, as you might be worryin’ 
some about it. ‘ All right,’ he says, ‘ I ’ll tell him 
myself next time I see him.’ ‘You’re sure you 


2 34 


The Golden Crocodile. 


will,’ I says. He was dead sure he would; and from 
that time on I ’ve never thought no more about it 
till you sprung it on me here. I am darn sorry for 
it, Doctor, — seems quite natural, somehow, callin' 
you Doctor, — but men goin’ into a business they 
ain’t been used to ’s always liable to spend a little 
time getting experience. But that was n’t what 
brought you over here?” Watson asked. 

“I explained that just now,” he replied; “it was 
on account of the story that woman came to me with, 
the old liar,” he added angrily. “I wanted to let 
you know the situation ; you see the position I was 
in, or I thought I was in.” 

The ex-leader stared at him for a moment. He 
had not understood this feature of the case, and how 
the young fellow he had been afraid to trust with 
the secret of the raid had, at immense personal sacri- 
fice, been trying to protect those who were associated 
with him. 

“Well, I’m — be — hanged,” he said, slowly and 
deliberately; “give me your hand, Doctor; shake — 
shake again. You — come — all — this — way just 
on our account; an’ we takin’ you for a sucker what 
couldn’t hold his tongue.” 

The big Western man was for the moment visibly 
affected, as he understood now the staunchness of 
the young associate he had feared to trust. 

“ Doctor — ” he went on presently, and there was a 
distinct change in the tone of his voice as well as in 
his manner; for hitherto he had been regarding the 


Travel and Travail. 


235 


matter as something which, though rather unfortu- 
nate for his companion, was still only one of those 
things which might happen to any one coming, young 
and inexperienced, to mix with that kind of life; 
but now he saw that he himself was really under 
a heavy obligation, — “ Doctor, you make me feel 
mighty bad about this, and I don’t know jest what 
to say to you.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Singleton broke in 
quickly; “it was worth coming over to get the truth 
of the thing. If I had n’t come, I might never have 
met you at all; I might have had the thing on my 
mind for years.” 

“Ye-es, there’s something in that, too,” he said 
slowly, and glad to think that there was some truth 
in the suggestion. “Doctor, you must let me know 
what all this coming over here and this back-going 
and hunting me up has cost; the hull bill ’s on me, 
mind, and — 

“ Now don’t talk that way, ” the ex-leader protested, 
as Singleton interrupted, with a point-blank refusal 
to do anything of the kind; “don’t talk like that,” 
he repeated; “maybe you think you can stand it as 
well as I can, and maybe it ’s so ; but it ’ud be a kind 
of a satisfaction to me. What d’ yer think of this,” 
he added, pulling out of his pocket a draft on a New 
York bank for a very large sum of money, the object 
of doing which, no doubt, was to give his companion 
some insight into the changed financial status of its 
possessor. “Plenty there, ain’t ther’ ? It’s the 


The Golden Crocodile. 


236 

second of that kind I ’ve had — blewed the first one 
last month at that place — what do they call it ? — 
Monte Carlo ; only got back last week, me and them 
two you saw with me. Didn’t have no luck with 
the wheel tho’ ; but I just stuck to it while the money 
held out. This pays us up now for the claim down 
to Mexico we sold. Ain’t any more to come, but 
that ’s ’bout ’nuf, ain’t it, for a poor man like me? ” 
and there was a touch of humor in his final words. 

His companion was compelled to laugh a little, 
too, as he handed back the paper, but refused to 
yield the point which they had been discussing 
before this one came up. 

“Why, seems as though everybody but us was 
gone,” observed Watson, looking round presently. 
“ What is the time ? Four o’clock ; guess we ’d better 
go. But say, let ’s make a day of it to-morrow. I ’ll 
come to you about noon ; you ain’t got anything better 
to do, I know. Won’t be in then? Well, then, 
let’s make a night of it instead; how’d six o’clock 
suit yer for me to call? ” and as this hour happened 
to suit, they were both soon outside, and parted, for 
their ways led in almost opposite directions. 

Singleton’s thoughts, as he walked through the 
deserted streets, and, presently, across empty 
Trafalgar Square, for the hour was so hopelessly 
late even the owl cabby he had looked for was not 
in sight, were a queer mixture of chagrin and 
satisfaction. How amused his cousin would be to- 
morrow when he heard the news! Well he might 


Travel and Travail. 


2 37 


be; but if placed in the same situation, at the same 
age, Singleton doubted that he had been any wiser, 
— he or any one else with the same training. With 
this reflection he consoled himself. 

He had not expected to see anything further of 
Watson until the hour appointed for the evening 
meeting; but while he was still at breakfast that 
gentleman’s card was brought in to him. He had 
come, as he explained, when they met in the 
smoking-room, to show Singleton a letter which he 
had received about a week ago; not from Glorietta 
itself, but from a friend in the town of X., some 
hundred miles distant; which he thought would 
interest him, — part of it, at least, — if he cared to 
hear it. 

Singleton was much obliged to him for taking 
the trouble, and listened while Watson read as 
follows : — 

Friend Ed, — ... but if any good friends of yours is in 
on the Elk Mountain boom around the Golden Crocodile 
what ’s been worked up down to Glorietta this winter, and 
you want to give ’em a pointer, tell ’em to get right out of 
that, fast as ever they can, if they don’t want to get left. 
Crocodiles don’t shed no tears, I b’lieve, but that there un 
ought to come near squeezin’ out a few when it knows the 
trouble it ’s bringing on. . . . 

How ’s the Mexican deal gettin’ on ? 

Your friend, Tibbetts. 

“ I did n’t know,” said Watson, as he folded up the 
letter and put it back in his pocket, “from the way 


The Golden Crocodile. 


238 

you talked last night, but you might have a little 
something in that yourself, whatever ’t is; for I ’ve 
bin away so long from there, I ain’t bin follerin’ 
things close; so I thought I ’d drop around and show 
it to you right away, as there wouldn’t be much 
of a chance to-night with five or six others cornin’ 
besides you an’ me.” 

The ex-miner spoke in an off-hand way, as though 
he did not suppose the matter could be of much 
importance to his companion; but just happening 
to think of it, he had dropped in as he was passing 
by on the way to do some business in the city with 
the purchasers of his Mexican claim. A looker-on, 
however, could have seen that he was covertly watch- 
ing the face of his companion, and narrowly, too. 
The Ed Watson of last evening, or the early hours 
of the morning to be strictly accurate, the noisy man 
of loud speech, was quite a different man to the one 
sitting there now. 

Not all of last night’s conversation between the 
two men was recorded at the time. In the enthu- 
siasm which naturally followed the relief to his feel- 
ings at the revelation concerning the Stimson affair, 
Singleton had entered into a description of what had 
been going on in Glorietta and the neighborhood 
since the ex-miner’s departure from those parts, 
which naturally included a full account of the Golden 
Crocodile boom. Watson did not pay much atten- 
tion to it at the moment; he had been just going to 
make a million or two himself several times when 


Travel and Travail. 


2 39 


first he started mining; but as he walked to the 
hotel he was staying at in Portland Place, in the 
cooler air outside, he remembered that he had some 
weeks ago received a letter from a friend in the 
town of X., no great distance from Glorietta, which 
he had thrown aside at the time, not being inter- 
ested in the subject. As he had again looked the 
letter through before getting into bed, its contents 
aroused within him feelings of considerable interest. 
He felt certain, from the way his companion of an 
hour ago had spoken, although Singleton had not 
gone into details, that he must be deeply involved 
in the rush. He looked at the date of the letter, 
and a long drawn-out “ Phe-w ! ” came from his 
lips. That sound meant as much as a whole host 
of words; it was the fullest expression of Mr. 
Watson’s thoughts just before he had turned into 
bed last night, and now, this morning, at 11.30, he 
was sitting there, watching his companion’s face 
as he read the letter. 

Only yesterday morning Harry Singleton had been 
out again to Sydenham looking at the house he had 
taken such a fancy to, and in which the profits of 
his Elk Mountain investments would enable him to 
settle down here at home; all sorts of delightful 
plans for the future had been running through his 
mind; and what he had learned last night about the 
Stimson matter had come, as a finishing touch, to 
them. 


240 


The Golden Crocodile . 


A careworn, anxious-looking young fellow hurried 
down the gangway ladder, ten days later, from the 
White Star steamer which had just made fast to the 
pier in New York, and only a few hours afterwards 
was whirling past the white farmhouses of Pennsyl- 
vania, towards the far-off West; but it was too late; 
the crash had come. 

The bottom had dropped clean out of the Golden 
Crocodile boom. There was the one rich mine; the 
rest had all gone up in smoke the moment that the 
snow went off, and showed that there was nothing 
underneath except well-nursed imagination. Had 
he been on the spot those two months past he 
could have saved himself; but that going away, try- 
ing to help the others — that had wrecked him. 
Everything he had was gone; a few sackfuls of 
handsomely-printed slips of paper, mining share 
certificates, represented his fortune. 


CHAPTER XII. 


DOWN ON HIS UPPERS, 


HREE years had gone by, and the shock to 



JL him which had come with the utter collapse 
of Harry Singleton’s fortune and dreams had long 
passed away, though not without leaving substantial 
traces. He looked ten, instead of only three years 
older; now he was a man, then he had been little 
more than a boy. 

He was still out there near Glorietta; he had 
never since been back to England. The few rem- 
nants he had gathered from the crash had left him 
almost nothing; and his pride rebelled at taking the 
assistance offered him by those at home if he would 
return. Here he was out of sight. His old part- 
ner, Shelby, who had shown almost as much con- 
cern as himself at the loss, had finally persuaded 
him to come and stay up at the Medicine Creek 
mine; and what few things he had left, or cared to 
keep were moved up there. 

It is not easy to describe what his reflections were 
about that time, — the feelings of a young man sud- 
denly and utterly unexpectedly dashed to the ground 
from a position of personal freedom and indepen- 


242 


The Golden Crocodile . 


dence. But he was young, and when the first feel- 
ing of hopelessness had passed, he began to look the 
future in the face, if not with hope, at least with 
resolution. As he told himself, he was not alone 
in his misfortunes; others, older than himself, who 
might well have been wiser, had gone down too, — 
there was in that just one grain of consolation. 

He made up his mind what he would do: he would 
join the expedition that Tom Lander was getting up 
to go to a new colony a long way to the north; for 
that indefatigable gentleman, who, needless to say, 
had come out of the crash quite unharmed, had not 
wasted any time before turning his attention to 
something else. 

To go back and take the reader through all the 
events which immediately succeeded the collapse 
of the Golden Crocodile boom would be wearying: 
tears and lamentations; charges that unscrupulous 
men had imposed upon credulous ones; that the 
whole thing had been got up by a ring, just to use 
the rich Golden Crocodile as a decoy; as a means to 
excite people's imagination about what was secretly 
known to be worthless; allegations that the sharp 
ones had begun to sell out as spring approached, 
and when, by the melting of the snow, the truth 
would soon be known ; that while they were selling 
out privately, they were at the self-same time crying 
the loudest in the market-place to the crowd to keep 
tight hold. 

That was some of the story ; but why go into it at 


Down on His Uppers. 243 

length ; it was merely an every-day lesson in human 
affairs* not confined to Glorietta. 

The horse covered with the heaviest blankets is 
always the jockey’s private tip to the gaping crowd. 

The priest clad in the finest vestments deals out 
1 the choicest salvation. 

And Mr. Tom Lander or his friends were only 
catering, after their fashion, and in their particular 
line, to a like human instinct, — imagination, or 
call it credulity, if you like. 

Mr. Lander was very sorry for everybody who had 
lost; and he really meant it, and had done his best 
to save his own particular friends. He had had 
nothing to do with the scheming, if there really was 
any, — for nobody could ever afterwards be found who 
knew if the whole thing was merely a mistake, or 
had been the work of designing men ; he went simply 
with the tide, and when he thought it had reached 
its height, he had placed his advice to retreat at the 
disposal of some special friends, though hardly ex- 
pecting them to take it ; and he was not mistaken. 
Advice, costing nothing, if it be contrary to what 
everybody else is saying, is never taken by one’s 
friends. Tom Lander might have saved Singleton 
had he not been in London; but then Singleton 
might not have taken his advice any more than 
others did. Who can tell ? 

But Glorietta was strewn with wreckage; and some 
steps had to be taken, soon after the crash, to clear 
the ground. The discontented ones, the losers, must 


244 


The Golden Crocodile . 


be persuaded to go elsewhere ; it would never do to 
have a lot of grumblers hanging about the place, for- 
ever dwelling upon the story of the disaster; their 
presence, and tales of ruin would be a serious draw- 
back; would act as a damper upon any fresh little 
excitement, the opportunity for which might present 
itself. New blood was needed in the place. Some 
attraction must be offered which would draw off 
the old to a distance, and thus make room for new 
people. 

The problem was presently solved by Mr. Lander’s 
fertile brain: the Green Mountain Falls’ Company 
was announced, to found a new colony far to the 
north, far from Glorietta. A grand opportunity, it 
was declared to be, by those who had explored the 
country, for every one to make a fresh start and for- 
get old grievances. And Mr. Lander was not mis- 
taken. Glorietta was soon cleared of the sore-headed 
ones; and one of the very last to come and see him, 
with a view to going also, was Harry Singleton, 
though this was nearly three years ago, a few months 
only after the crash. 

“ I ’m very glad to see you ’re bracing up again,” 
remarked Mr. Lander, when Singleton called to see 
him about going. “ I was just a little bit afraid, as 
you ’re not an American; not accustomed to have a 
set-back like this, you might be dropping into old 
Elijah’s style, when he had that kick of his on; and 
be waiting for the ravens to come and feed you ; but 
that doesn’t work now when a man ’s knocked out. 


Down on His Uppers . 


245 


Just as soon as he can get his wind he ’d better 
start right in again; it ’s the only way to come 
even with the world ; glad you see it that way, too. 
Deuce of a pity you ever went to London that time. 
What ’s the use, though, — what ’s the use of talking 
about it? It’s done — gone — past — no use ever 
looking backwards in this world. 

“ But about this idea of yours to go to the north- 
west. I’m glad of it for one reason: because it 
shows you ’re recovering, and also because it ’s been 
the means of bringing you down. I should prob- 
ably have sent you up a message some day next week 
that I wanted to see you.” 

“ Oh, is there any chance then, after all, for me to 
get what you wrote about before ?” Singleton broke 
in eagerly, and brightening up a little, for the Harry 
Singleton of to-day, with but two hundred and eight 
dollars and thirty-five cents, besides a gun, and a 
rifle, and some odds and ends left in the world, was 
a very different person to the gay, light-hearted 
young fellow heretofore always possessed of an inde- 
pendence, and at one time — that time when he was 
arranging for the purchase of the fine house in Lon- 
don — worth, as he believed himself to be, when the 
Golden Crocodile boom was at its height, a thousand- 
fold the paltry sum just mentioned. 

There was a careworn look in his face; he had 
never blamed any one but himself for his misfor- 
tunes, though only too well he might have, and had 
gladly accepted the offers of the friends of better 


246 


The Golden Crocodile. 


days to do their best in getting him some occupation 
here for a future livelihood, although, so far, noth- 
ing had resulted from these offers, and he had grown 
very weary waiting ; perhaps they were doing noth- 
ing, probably had forgotten all about him. Some 
thought of this kind might have occurred to him, 
and suggested his going elsewhere. 

Tom Lander had answered his question. The 
matter he would like to see him about next week 
was not one which had been mentioned before; 
he would not go into details, but would Single- 
ton come down from Shelby’s in, say, ten days’ 
time. 

Lander watched him riding off. “ Been mending 
his own pants already, I see,” remarked that gentle- 
man, whose sharp eyes had detected some amateur 
attempts at needlework about his visitor’s clothing. 
“Ah! I’ve been all through that myself; I know 
what it is! He’s looking badly broken up; facing 
it better than I thought he would at first, though. 
Has n’t had the training to stand the rough side 
of life. Roughing it ’s very fine, very fine, when 
there ’s nothing rough but the clothes, — when there ’s 
a good balance down at the bank any time you want 
it. Knocks the poetry out of it pretty quick, though, 
when the balance skips. Why the deuce doesn’t 
he marry that girl up there ? The old man ’s got any 
quantity of stuff. What has he got? ” and here Mr. 
Lander referred to the book which he took from a 
private drawer in his desk. He raised his eyebrows. 


Down on His Uppers . 


247 


“Pays taxes on — and God knows nobody pays 
taxes on more than they can help — ” he remarked 
inwardly. “Why, it’s a lot more than I thought 
even; the girl ’ud get enough to keep both of them 
well; yet the women say he’s broken it off, and 
she’s gone away. Pshaw!” and, with a gesture of 
impatience at the stubbornness of some people, Mr. 
Lander turned his attention to something else. 

That old hearty laugh of Mr. Lander was never 
heard in these days; he was not now leading a force 
into action, and cheering them with humor which 
would make them forget to think. The mantle of 
the surgeon and the undertaker had fallen upon him 
for a time at least; and it was proper for him to 
remember the fact, and to adjust his demeanor 
accordingly, until the killed and maimed from the 
Golden Crocodile skirmish had been attended to. 
Later on, when the wreckage had been thoroughly 
cleared away, the laugh of other days would no doubt 
be heard again. 

- Something he had said about the man who had 
just left him was not strictly accurate. Singleton’s 
engagement with little Maggie Rankine was not 
exactly broken off; though it was true that she had 
gone away to make a long stay with her aunt, near 
San Francisco, and a granddaughter of the old 
bishop, some years older than Maggie herself, had 
taken her place at the ranch. 

Singleton’s position upon returning certainly was 
most humiliating; suddenly to find, after writing 


248 


The Golden Crocodile. 


long letters describing the new life he was bringing 
her to, and even saying something about that house 
he took such a fancy to, and all the thousand and 
one things that ardent lovers — all lovers, it may be 
said — do write, — suddenly to find after all this that 
only a few hundred dollars stood between himself 
and beggary was galling to his pride, beyond endur- 
* ance. There was but one thing for him to do, and 
he did it. 

Devoted to her as he was, he could not bear the 
thought of posing as a dependent on her father’s 
bounty; that was impossible. Had he come here 
poor, perhaps it would have been different ; but the 
pride of the young man of spirit in reduced circum- 
stances was supreme. Time might soften the bitter- 
ness of the feeling, but for the present, with him, all 
thought of the engagement being continued was at 
an end. There was a parting full of wretchedness 
for both of them, which poor little Maggie had felt 
so much that at her old father’s own suggestion the 
change had been made which took her right away 
from the neighborhood. 

It was summer time now, and as he rode back 
again that afternoon to the Medicine Creek mine, 
after leaving Tom Lander, he stopped for a little 
while when he came to the turn in the road where 
the Roaring Fork Creek came tumbling out of the 
narrow, rocky gorge, through which he had once 
scrambled with the two girls to fish that time. 
How long ago was it? To him it seemed like years; 


Down on His Uppers. 249 

but it was not yet one whole year. What a change 
to him since then ! 

He had plenty of time to get back in; it was two 
hours yet till sunset. He tied his horse to a post, 
and, creeping through the fence wires, lay down 
upon the grass inside. The sound of the waterfall 
in the distance rose and fell with the ebb and flowing 
of the breeze between the plain and mountain, up 
the gorge. How musical, how restful! There are 
sights and sounds in Nature, — the tossing of the 
ocean, the roar of Niagara, the resounding surf upon 
the lonely coral islet, the giant waterfall of the 
tropics, the smooth-flowing silvern stream of some 
fair, old, settled land, bordered with rich flower- 
gardens and ivy-mantled dwellings, — these and a 
thousand others have their charms for each or all. 
But a poor, modest little one yet remains; one 
appealing to man’s inward thoughts, perhaps, as 
deeply as the grandest of them all, its influence 
recorded wider upon the pages of human history, — 
the desert stream, emblem of very life, born of the 
melting snows far up towards the clear, blue, cloud- 
less sky. 

“ Are not the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers 
of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? ” 
once cried the Syrian captain, as in fancy, in the 
far-off place that he had travelled to, still he could 
hear their splashing streams coming from the snows 
of towering Lebanon, gurgling through the rose gar- 
dens of his native place, wrested by them from the 


250 


The Golden Crocodile. 


scorching desert ; and Harry Singleton, lying there 
on the grass, listening to the music of the Roaring 
Creek coming through the rocky gorge, as he gazed 
out into the haze of the boundless, naked desert plain 
reaching to the horizon, felt his thoughts expand, and 
a feeling of new hopefulness creep over him. 

Why be despondent with Nature as a cheerful 
fellow-worker everywhere around for company? 
Hers was the voice that he was listening to, laugh- 
ing and singing while working at her task, — the 
task of sawing up this giant mountain range, tower- 
ing above him, just as he might set himself to saw 
a log up there at Shelby’s; carrying up the water 
to the mountain-tops, and letting it run down to do 
the cutting through the rocks; singing, too, just 
as the ringing saw sang in the wood; carrying away 
the sawdust — the ground-up rocks — out upon the 
distant plain; spreading it out there, building that 
up. Some day, it might be a million or ten million 
years, — she wasn’t in a hurry, — there would be 
nothing left to saw, the mountains would be all 
used up. What then ? Would some one push them 
up again ? 

What did it mean? Why push the mountains up, 
just to saw them down again? Strange, incompre- 
hensible arrangement ! 

But it was long since he had felt so cheerful. 

Three years, it was said when this chapter opened, 
had gone by since the Golden Crocodile crash, and 


Down on His Uppers. 


2 5 ! 


still the neighborhood of Glorietta counted Harry 
Singleton among its people; no longer the light- 
hearted youth of days gone by, but now a man in 
looks as well as manner. Still living where he was 
before, though now alone, up at the mine at Medicine 
Creek, managing it for the owners, Edward Watson 
and Joseph Shelby. 

How the former came to buy old Bishop Rankine’s 
share, no person but Tom Lander knows; for Watson 
never had been back, although long since returned 
from London, and living somewhere in the States. 
But there is little doubt the thing was arranged by 
the rough ex-miner — for old Shelby had not the 
means himself, howsoever willing — to quietly do 
something, if he could, for the man whose fortune 
had been sacrificed. Ed Watson, rough, coarse man 
outwardly, though he was, admitted to himself his 
indirect responsibility for it. 

So it came about that when Shelby married, as he 
did a few months later, and went to live in Glorietta, 
they offered Singleton, who only too gladly jumped 
at it, the management. 

The Medicine Creek mine was never known as a 
bonanza; but the yield quite satisfied the new owners, 
of whom the absent Ed Watson had by far the largest 
share. And, indeed, when three years were up, as 
they were last week, it was found the owners had 
got back all they paid for it. Perhaps it was the 
feeling of satisfaction at this, as well as the promis- 
ing future, which made old Shelby feel so jovial one 


252 


The Golden Crocodile . 


mid- January evening we have now come to, as he sat 
before the roaring stove, talking with his partner of 
days gone by, in the cabin up at the Medicine mine. 
He had driven up to-day, as he did each month, 
bringing money to pay the men with; and the howl- 
ing snowstorm outside only made the hot whiskey 
he was sipping taste the better. 

Good-hearted old Shelby was wanting very much, 
just now, to put some questions, or make some sug- 
gestions, rather, to his companion, now grown rather 
taciturn, perhaps from living by himself so long. He 
knew his former partner’s story well, though no words 
had ever passed between them on the subject since 
Singleton’s return, — knew all about a little girl, 
a woman now in years, though childish-looking still, 
waiting, with loving patience, for his pride to heal. 

But perhaps his companion's look was not encour- 
aging, and the visitor contented himself, instead, 
with looking over the “ Bullion City News,” a little 
paper published once a week in one of the camps 
further west he used to know so well in the early 
days, — one of the places he made a big strike in him- 
self only to lose it all again so quickly. That was 
long ago, but the old place still interested him ; he 
liked to see what was going on in the mines once so 
fabulously rich, though now well-nigh abandoned. 

“There ’s some old friends of mine at Bullion City 
come into a bit of luck, I see, Doctor,” he remarked 
presently, commenting upon something he had come 
across; “here ’s the old Bullion No. 2 come to life 


Down on His Uppers . 


253 


again, I see. That ’ll be good news for some of 
them ; they ’ve been about busted any time these 
last ten years. You ought to read that, Doctor, 
before you let the men have it to-morrow. Guess 
I ’ll go to bed now; I ’m getting older than I used 
to be; need more sleep since getting married.” 

With these, and a few other observations, old 
Shelby departed; and soon the sound of vigorous 
snoring came through the flimsy partition of the 
wooden building. 

Singleton sat on alone, glancing over the bundle 
of newspapers which the old man had brought up 
for him, and at times reading again some letters 
which had come up with them. There was one 
from his mother, urging him once more to come 
back home, and making the same generous offer that 
she often had before. To-night, for the very first 
time, her words made an impression on him; why, 
it was difficult to say, but perhaps because for some 
months past he had been slowly wearying of the isola- 
tion, the monotony of his surroundings. Besides, 
he could never ask a wife to come and live in such a 
place as this ; others did, but perhaps they had not 
started with fair pictures such as he had drawn. 
He had put by almost enough from what he earned 
to keep him while he went back home to finish, or 
commence again and go right through with what he 
had begun at — medicine. That done, he could 
return, and need no longer let pride stand between 
him and the happiness that was waiting for him. 


2 54 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Such thoughts as these had been passing through 
his mind since his visitor had gone to bed, leaving 
him alone. He had been sitting there so long, the 
lamp was almost going out; it was time to go to 
bed. He was collecting the papers scattered on the 
floor and table, putting them together before he left. 
Then he remembered the little “ Bullion City 
News.” One of the men, for whom old Shelby 
brought it up, would call for it the first thing in the 
morning on his way to work. 

“I ’d better look over that about the Bullion No. 
2 that he was speaking of before it goes,” he said to 
himself. “The old fellow will be sure to ask in the 
morning if I read it. He’s always so enthusiastic 
about those places he used to be in.” 

He picked out from amongst the larger ones the 
little flimsy sheet, a typical mining-camp newspaper. 
There was a long description of the last week’s 
doings at the various mines, — how much ore this 
one or that one had raised, and how much the crush- 
ings of each had yielded, with various comments as 
to the comparison of this with the past. It was not 
this he wanted to see; but he found what he was 
looking for presently, which ran as follows : — 

“ The owners of the Bullion No. 2, after several years 
of experimenting, have at last succeeded in perfecting a 
process for saving the gold from their refractory ore, which 
has hitherto resisted all successful treatment. As the sub- 
ject is of the greatest interest to the Bullion Hill camp at 
large, as well as to the fortunate No. 2 owners, through 


Down on His Uppers. 


2 55 


their courtesy we are able to give below a statement show- 
ing the analysis of the ore now brought under subjection 
by pluck and determination, which is about to receive its 
reward.” 

He read it through somewhat carelessly, and then 
glanced down at the column of figures below. He 
was tired and sleepy; the hour was late; the lamp 
was slowly going out ; the stove had burned so low 
the cold from the howling storm outside made the 
room feel very chilly. He was about to lay it aside, 
had even partly folded it, when suddenly a some- 
thing like the flitting of a bird seemed to pass before 
him ; a thought had come into his brain. In a 
moment all drowsiness was gone; he was alert as 
though this had been midday, and not one o’clock in 
the morning. He seized the little paper, spread it 
full out again, and moving close against the failing 
lamp, ran his finger quickly down the figures, those 
which had been mentioned. An exclamation passed 
his lips as his finger reached the end. His whole 
manner in the last few minutes had completely 
changed. 

“MyG — ! I believe it’s the very same. ” Then 
striding quickly across the floor, seizing as he went 
a box of matches lying on the table, he passed into 
his little sleeping room and lit the lamp in there. 
Now reaching down underneath the bed, he pulled 
out an old worn leathern travelling-trunk, and began 
quickly tumbling its contents promiscuously out 
upon the floor. Soon the trunk was nearly empty, 


The Golden Crocodile. 


256 

and a disappointed look was gathering in his face; 
but suddenly that changed, his eyes had lighted 
upon something. Apparently it was what he had 
been looking for. 

“Ah!” and the tone in which the word was said 
showed plainly the excited state that he was in. “ I 
thought I hadn’t destroyed it.” 

His fingers grasped a book lying in the very 
bottom of the trunk, — an old, worn diary it looked 
like from the cover. Now he was turning over the 
leaves hastily, almost trembling with suppressed 
excitement. Presently he came to some loose slips 
of paper with figures on them, stuck in between the 
book leaves, the sight of which drew from, him at 
once a fresh gesture of satisfaction. He hurried 
back to the sitting-room, carrying the lamp with him. 
He was too excited to sit down now, but only leaned 
across the table where the little “ Bullion City News ” 
lay spread, and with a pencil went quickly though 
carefully over both, comparing them. 

He had finished, and was pacing up and down the 
room. He must wake up the other man; it was too 
much to bear alone; besides, he did not know what 
their legal status was; perhaps they should be up 
and doing even now. There could be no sleep for 
them to-night. 

“ Shelby, there ’s something here you ought to see 
at once. Will you get up?” he called out, rapping 
hurriedly upon the old man’s door. “How do we 
stand about the Old Silver Ledge?” 


Down on His Uppers. 


2 57 

“Why! what’s the matter? What’s getting up 
so early for? ” asked the old man, throwing on some 
clothes, and presently emerging half asleep from his 
room. 

“ Look at this ! just look at this ! ” Singleton cried 
in answer, pointing out those figures which had pro- 
duced in himself symptoms that a stranger might 
have almost taken for a passing madness. But 
hardly any wonder, reader, for they showed that the 
stubborn ore of the Bullion No. 2 over west, and of 
the Old Silver Ledge at Grizzly Hollow forty miles 
from here amongst the higher mountains were alike; 
and yet these two men here had abandoned it, had 
never been back there since they left it, three years 
and a half ago. 

Old Shelby, who had been going through the 
figures too, looked up now and brought his fist down 
on the table with a crash which almost overset the 
lamp. He was sw’earing, showering imprecations 
on his own head for the folly of having neglected to 
do the work which was required by law each year to 
hold the claim. 

“ ,” we will not insert the words; they might 

shock some people. “ A million dollars lying there ! 

What a and all my fault for not looking after 

it. Just to think of us lettin’ that go — ” 

From the violence of the demonstrations directed 
against himself, one might almost have supposed that 
the speaker had been left in abject poverty; but 
truly it was intensely irritating. 

1 7 


258 


The Golden Crocodile . 


There came a little lull in the remarks, which had 
rapidly been passing between them, arising out of a 
suggestion by Singleton that they might be able to 
hold it legally. 

“No use thinkin’ of such a thing, Doctor, not a 
bit of use talkin' that way. It ain’t ours now, no 
more ’n it’s Ching Chong’s, the cook you’ve got 
here; and there ’s only one way to get it, that ’s just 
go and take it, supposin’, as ain’t very likely, no one 
else has it by this time. We ’ve just got to go up 
there and stake out that ground once more.” 

“ Do you think we can possibly get there at this 
time of year?” 

“ Get there? I ’ll get there, or bust over it,” cried 
the old man, who, in spite of his gray head, was 
now re-animated, as if by magic, with all the old fire 
of his young prospecting days. 

“ Hurrah!” shouted his companion, for that kind 
of enthusiasm was catching; and the sudden change 
in the prospect opening to himself had brought a 
rush of feelings which badly needed some outlet for 
them. 

This settled one point only. They would risk 
their lives amongst the winter snows of the upper 
ranges ; but they had yet to ascertain if some one had 
not already taken up the claim since they had left it. 
Information on this last, this all-important point, 
upon the yea or nay of which the whole thing for the 
moment turned, they could only get in Glorietta at 
the Mining Record Office. 


Down on His Uppers . 


2 59 


“ You’ll have to come right off with me to Glorietta, 
soon as day breaks, Doctor. The snow ’s lying so 
deep now, we’ll take the sleigh down. Mustn’t 
say a word to the men about this. Just write a 
letter sayin’ you ’ll be absent for a few days — gone 
down with me.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A PERILOUS EXPEDITION. 

I T was a most dangerous thing to go into the 
higher mountains in mid-winter. Apart from 
the risk of being frozen or falling into gulches filled 
with snow, sometimes to a depth of fifty feet or 
more, there was the ever-present risk of being 
smothered in an avalanche, — snow-slides, the miners 
styled them. Huge drifts, lying piled on the pre- 
cipitous slopes, hung there, seeming as if almost sus- 
pended in mid-air, and ready, with the least vibration 
of the atmosphere, — a shout, or tread of human feet, 
at certain times being quite enough to set the whole 
mountain-side in motion, — to plunge down and carry 
everything below them to destruction. 

The little graveyard at Glorietta had many stories, 
in brief lines on head-posts, of past days when men 
were more reckless and foolhardy. And nowadays 
even there were lives lost. Last spring three men 
had been overwhelmed in the South Mountain 
Canyon, twenty miles from Glorietta, — miners who 
had gone up there too early in the spring. 

It is not very likely either of these men, young or 
old, gave any thought to this in the long, toilsome 


A Perilous Expedition. 261 

drive across the snow to the town below next morn- 
ing. Much more likely each was thinking, as he 
sat there in the sleigh, encased from head to foot in 
buffalo-skin coats against the cold, of the dazzling 
possibilities which the accidental discovery of only 
a few hours before had brought with it. 

And now the little town was not far off. Singleton 
had not been down to it for one whole year; the 
place had no attractions for him. It was the scene 
of his misfortunes; the goingto it only brought back 
bitter feelings, fruitless regrets as well, perhaps. 
How dead, how almost deserted, now it looked to 
what it was that winter of the Golden Crocodile 
boom ! 

Three years ago the little street was filled with 
men rushing here and there. To-day you might 
have fired a cannon down it without hitting any one, 
or possibly without awakening even any one, it 
seemed so dead, so gone to sleep; and yet those two 
men just come into it might be the means of start- 
ing up the slumbering fires again; but for the 
present they would keep their secret to themselves. 

Their hearts were beating fast as they approached 
the Record Office, where the books would show if 
the Old Silver Ledge claim was still without an 
owner, lying up there in the mountains towering at 
the back of the town, worth at this moment, they 
knew for certain, a million dollars, and it might be 
twice or thrice as much. Something like a pinch 
of salt to a gallon of water, had been all that was 


262 


The Golden Crocodile. 


needed to get the gold out in the days gone by when 
they had it; but they did not know. No one knew 
then. 

They were in the office searching, speaking to 
each other with only bated breath, the suspense was 
so great. Soon they had found the volume they 
were looking for, and turned the pages quickly over; 
this was the page; they almost dreaded now to look; 
it was a critical moment. What did the book say? 

“ It ’s all right, Doctor; no one 9 s taken it up since, 
thank the Lord!” came from the old man with a 
whispered gulp, for even his throat had dried up too. 
“ Let ’s get away now quick as we can ; don’t let any- 
body see us looking at it. ” 

There was not the slightest necessity for any such 
precaution as the last, for there was no one in the 
place but a few clerks, and they were many feet 
away; it was only nervousness. 

The office was on an upstairs floor, and as they 
hurried out and down again, a stranger passed them 
coming up. He was heavily clad, a hood being 
drawn down almost to his eyes, and a large woollen 
comforter round his neck and over the lower part 
of his face, hiding both mouth and chin. The cold 
outside was bitter, and some persons required such 
protection, especially when driving, though Single- 
ton and his companion had not found it necessary. 
Of the stranger’s face there was little or nothing to 
be seen, except the eyes, but these were dark and 
had a quick, restless movement. 


A Perilous Expedition. 


263 


To note carefully the last would have taken more 
time than the passing a man on a stairway gives; 
but there was a something in the glance he got which 
made Singleton inclined to pause a moment. Some 
thought flashed into his mind, but had not time to 
mature; his companion was hurrying on; he fol- 
lowed. 

They were going now to Shelby’s house in a 
neighboring street to make arrangements at once for 
starting off to-morrow; but they had not got far 
when an exclamation of annoyance came from the 
elder man ; he was fumbling in the huge pockets of 
his buffalo-skin overcoat; something was missing, 
— his warm fur gloves. In the excitement at the 
office, he must have taken out the thin pair that he 
was now wearing from his pocket and left the others 
behind. 

His companion waited while he hurried back; it 
was not far. They had halted just opposite the 
rambling little hotel Singleton was living at in the 
days gone by when the cunning old Italian woman 
came to him that night. It was her work, as much 
as anybody’s, that had ruined him. How well he 
remembered the events of that evening! 

In old Shelby’s face as he approached returning 
there was a startled, troubled look. 

“ My God ! we ’re done ! ” he cried as he came up. 
“Some other parties is after it;” and then he ex- 
plained how on getting back there a sudden desire 
had seized him to examine the record of the claim 


264 


The Golden Crocodile . 


again, in case in their hurry and excitement they 
might possibly have been mistaken. Looking for 
the book, which had been left lying on the counter, 
he found that the man who met them on the stairs 
had got it, and peeping over his shoulder saw him 
writing something in a note-book from that very 
page. 

“ It scares me badly, Doctor. A bit of news like 
this from Bullion Hill travels quick in winter time, 
when men sits around the stove readin’ a good deal 
more ’n they do in summer. Must be others knows 
about that stuff in the Old Silver Ledge. There’s 
no use talking of puttin’ off goin’ till to-morrow; 
we ’ve got to start right away, just soon as it ’s dark, 
and we can get out of town without any one seein’ 
us. Wouldn’t do to go down the street with packs 
on the horses in daylight. If others is after this, 
we can’t be too careful. 

“I ’ve got it all figured out in my mind,” he went 
on hurriedly. “ I was thinkin’ it over coming down. 
My wife’s nephew’ll come along with us. We can 
take the horses far as Red Butte, about ten miles 
above Medicine Creek; just in there’s a spot shel- 
tered in winter, where we can make our first rest and 
turn the horses loose; they ’ll come back home pretty 
straight. We can’t take them no further, as we’ll 
have to begin workin’ up the mountain -sides from 
there on. If we have any luck at all, we ’ll get to 
the claim in three days.” 

It was about half-past nine that same evening as 


265 


A Perilous Expedition. 

three horsemen, muffled from head to foot, turned 
into the road leading from Glorietta to Grizzly Hol- 
low, from a side road which joined it here at a point 
some miles outside the town. The night was calm, 
clear, and brilliantly starlit; the storm of the early 
part of the day had passed, leaving only an added 
half foot to the soft winter winding-sheet. 

No sound broke the stillness but the monotonous 
crunch, crunch, crunch of the horses’ feet on the 
frozen ground, along here worn into ruts by the pas- 
sage to and fro of wood-carts from the near-by foot- 
hills. The cold was bitter, biting, and the faces of 
the riders so covered for protection from it, as to 
make their features unrecognizable; but they were 
our friends of Medicine Creek, who had left the 
town an hour before, taking, as they deemed it pru- 
dent, a circuitous route, starting in the opposite 
direction from the town. 

But for the haunting fear that some one might be 
ahead of them, or following, everything in the sur- 
roundings was exhilarating; the crisp, cold air 
around, the starlit heavens above, the great tower- 
ing white mountain range towards which they were 
moving ahead, and the magnificence of the prize to 
be grasped ; of the dangers they took no thought. 

That the fear of being followed was uppermost 
in their minds just now, however, was clear from 
the way in which every now and then one or other 
of them turned in the saddle and peered into the 
hazy gloom behind. 


266 


The Golden Crocodile . 


Presently they were passing by the old place the 
youngest of the party knew so well, — the old bishop’s 
ranch. There stood the house back from the road 
on the rising ground above; for two whole years 
Singleton had never seen the place. When the old 
man died the property was sold some six months 
after; all except the bit of ground around the first 
little lonely grave there in the wilderness. 

Lights shone from several windows facing down 
upon the road; one from the window of the very 
room he slept in that first night. Somehow he had 
always remembered that so well; and what a row the 
sparrows made in the locust-trees close by ! 

The hours passed by, and still the same monoto- 
nous crunch, crunch under the horses’ feet alone 
broke the stillness. Just now they had crossed the 
little bridge over the Medicine Creek, where the 
road turned off going to the mine they had only left 
that very morning, three miles up the creek. The 
mass of dark volcanic rocks at the foot of which 
bubbled up the little spring of iron water which 
gave the creek its name, half a mile away, showed 
clearly in the starlight. 

They were feeling very much excited now. They 
would soon come to a point beyond in which in 
winter-time no woodcutters ever went. Hitherto 
the snow had been disturbed by cart-wheels. They 
could not tell if any person had gone on ahead of 
them; but when this point was reached they could. 
A nervous, anxious dread was on them, but the 


A Perilous Expedition . 


267 

smooth, unbroken surface on beyond removed that 
quickly when they got there; it told its tale; no one 
was in front of them. 

“ Hurrah ! hurrah ! ” they shouted. Their feelings 
needed some relief. 

It was the summer stage-road on to Grizzly they 
were following now, or that is the place where it 
would be if not buried. All dismounted, wading, 
floundering through the untouched snow, taking it 
in turn to lead, each sharing in the heavy, toilsome 
work of breaking a trail. 

The first streaks of daylight were streaming over 
the giant summits right ahead, as the little weary 
worn-out party reached the shelter spot that old 
Shelby had been speaking of. Campers there in 
summer had left some logs, and these were quickly 
blazing, and soon afterwards three figures, covered 
up from head to foot in bearskins, lay stretched upon 
the ground, from which the snow had been cleared 
around the fire. 

Almost noon, it must have been, judging by the 
sun, when one of the party, it was Singleton, with 
a sudden start threw off his covering, and sitting up 
stared wildly round. Then jumping quickly to his 
feet ran round the corner which shut out the view of 
the direction from which they had been coming all 
last night. 

He had been dreaming, and so vividly it seemed 
almost a reality, — dreaming they were being fol- 
lowed, some one was overtaking them, he could see 


268 


The Golden Crocodile . 


them coming on behind, walking in the very tracks, 
and with such ease, where he and his companions 
had struggled wearily along through the soft, yield- 
ing snow, breaking the trail. How hard he tried to 
keep ahead ! — but something held him back ; his feet 
had turned to lead; he could scarcely lift them; 
despair was seizing him; then suddenly the waking 
came. 

Now they were all up and doing. The horses, 
which had been let loose when they arrived, probably 
were half way back by this; and things too heavy to 
be carried further without them were hidden in the 
rocks. One more look behind, and then three men 
with packs on their backs climbed out of the shelter 
and soon disappeared amongst the dark trunks of the 
pine-trees, floundering through the snow, already 
here waist-high. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CONJURING. 

npWO days before events had reached the point 
described in the preceding chapter, a stranger 
had arrived in Glorietta, and after finding a quiet 
lodging, where he gave the name of Mr. Brooks, had 
engaged a sleigh at a livery stable and driven off 
along the road, quickly, taking him out of the little 
town and into the open country towards the north. 

Following, we find him after a two hours' drive 
arriving at a little lonely ranch in amongst the foot- 
hills, miles from any other dwelling. His coming 
is heralded by a chorus of barking dogs, and pres- 
ently, from barns and other places round, several 
sturdy-looking youths appear, wondering, apparently, 
from the look upon their faces, who can have strayed 
in upon them at this winter season, when visitors 
were few and far between. 

But soon there are signs of recognition, accompa- 
nied by expressions of astonishment from the youths. 
The horses are put under shelter, and the visitor 
conducted to the little farmhouse, glad to get inside, 
too, for a little while, and thaw out his half-frozen 
fingers. 


270 


The Golden Crocodile . 


His entry is the signal for a fresh outburst of 
astonishment, coming now from an old Swede 
farmer and his wife, parents of the young men, their 
speech in very broken English, as they make room 
for him near the stove. 

A long conversation follows. There are shakings 
of heads by the father and mother; an emphatic 
“No! no!” from the latter as she listens, and then 
turns to shake one of the pots simmering on the 
stove, as if to give thereby more emphasis to her 
words. The father slowly smokes his pipe, but adds 
his “No” as well. The young men in their rough 
ranch clothes stand around with mouths half opened, 
listening, — honest, simple-minded faces theirs. 
The visitor looks rather disappointed for a moment 
when the mother makes her dissent so emphatic. 
Then he looks up at the lads, who seem rather dis- 
appointed too. 

“I can get plenty of men in Glorietta to come; 
but your boys know the way up the Flaming Gorge 
so well, that ’s why I came all the way out here to 
you,” urged the visitor. “You ’ll only be losing all 
this money, Mrs. Jensen;” and just then, accident- 
ally as it might be, he jingled a bag of gold in his 
coat-pocket which had been freely mentioned in 
the conversation. “I’m going myself; I’m taking 
all the risks too. Had n’t you better talk it over, 
while I go outside with the boys for a little; it’s 
getting too hot in here for me,” and suiting the 
action to the word the visitor moved outside, fol- 


Conjuring . 


271 


lowed by the lads, managing as he pulled his heavy 
coat more closely round him to jingle again the 
money in his pocket. 

He wanted some one, two of these boys — that was 
what he had come about, that was the subject of his 
conversation — to start off to-morrow with him into 
the higher mountains. A matter; the precise details 
of which he did not give, but explained in a round- 
about sort of way; made it necessary for him to 
undertake the expedition at once. He had come 
from a long way off on purpose to make it. 

Plenty of men in Glorietta could be found to take 
the risk for what he was offering to pay. This much 
he had explained; but not exactly why he did not 
take some of those other men. He did not tell them 
that he preferred companions who were not too 
sharp, nor that he remembered the faces of these 
lads since that time some years ago, when late that 
evening he had arrived here quite exhausted, and, 
telling a fable about his horse having got loose in 
the mountains and run home, had asked shelter for 
the night. They would better suit him, these lads, 
in this affair than men from Glorietta, who might 
be sharper than he cared for. He had left that ex- 
planation out, naturally. 

Gold won of course. The boys pleaded with their 
parents. Perhaps they even hinted that they would 
go without their leave, if they would not give it, for 
Mr. Brooks had been talking to them privately out- 
side. They knew every foot of the Flaming Gorge, 


272 


The Golden Crocodile . 


these boys, for in summer-time they herded cattle 
in the upper mountains. And so the thing was 
settled. Mr. Brooks would be back to-morrow after- 
noon, and they would start at once. 

In a preceding chapter, it was pointed out that 
the Silver Ledge claim lay near the summit of a 
high ridge separating Grizzly Hollow from the 
Flaming Gorge, and that any person could approach 
the claim either by the route which Shelby and 
Singleton had taken, or by this alternative route, 
though few, if any people ever went by the latter, 
as it was a much more roundabout way for any one 
starting from Glorietta. Thus the topography was 
such that two separate parties might be approaching 
the claim, and have no knowledge of each other’s 
presence up to the last moment. They would be, 
as it were, scrambling along on opposite sides of a 
sloping roof, the ridge of which lay between them. 
While, therefore, Singleton and Shelby were hurrah- 
ing and congratulating themselves at having got a 
good start, had they at the same moment been able 
to see through the ten miles of mountain which 
separated them from the Flaming Gorge, they would 
have seen a party, similar in number and equipment, 
heading in exactly the same direction as themselves, 
and led by the very person whose presence at the 
office had alarmed them so. 

It was just about four in the afternoon of Friday, 
the 23d of January, when the expedition by the 
Flaming Gorge route — or at least the leader of 


Conjuring . 


2 73 


it, for he had pushed on ahead of his companions 
— reached a point which the leader knew by the 
sketches in his pocket-book, could not be very distant 
from the claim. We will pass over the story of the 
risks and hardships they had suffered on the way, as 
too monotonous to record at length ; thus far, at any 
rate, they were safe. 

Spurred on by the enthusiasm which the prospect 
of such a great prize, as he well knew it to be, 
aroused, he had pushed ahead of his almost worn-out 
companions, who were slowly dragging on behind, 
though up here there was less depth of snow than 
on some of the frightful places they had passed. He 
was standing on the high dividing ridge, already men- 
tioned once or twice before. In front of him, and 
far away below, lay Grizzly Hollow, buried in a sea 
of snow, some of the roofs only peeping out of it. 

The paper in his hand said that at one corner of 
the claim a great gray granite mass made a very 
striking landmark. He was looking for this, and 
swept the ground before him with a field-glass 
rapidly. 

“ That ’ s it ; that must be it, bravo ! ” he cried very 
excitedly, and his small dark eyes gleamed triumph- 
antly. “Come on, come on!” he shouted, turning 
and waving to his companions, who were toiling 
slowly up from below. He could see they were 
putting on a little spurt, so turned again to feast his 
eyes on the spot in front. There was a disagreeable 
grin on his features; perhaps he was thinking of 
18 


The Golden Crocodile . 


274 

some fears that had been in his mind, and chuckling 
to himself. 

But suddenly his manner changed completely, as 
he was still looking through the glass. He lowered 
it quite hurriedly, rubbed the lenses with a corner 
of his coat, and looked again, this time with a long, 
steady look. 

“ D — n, that ’s what I ’ve been afraid of; ” all his 
look of triumph had vanished in a moment, and 
given place to one of jealousy and hatred, and then 
of cunning, too. Other violent words, another quick 
look through the glass, then quickly turning round 
he looked back again, as if to see how long it would 
take until the others reached where he was standing. 
Then he looked over towards the granite mass. 

“ Curse it, there is n’t time. But I ’ll not be done 
out of it. I’ll manage it some other way; it’ll 
never do to let these clodhoppers see those tracks.” 
His manner now was almost fiendish, though by the 
time that his companions reached him he appeared to 
be quite calm again. “ It ’s somewhere not far from 
here that I want to put in a stake,” he said, turning 
to them as they came up, “and I ’ve got to make sure 
I ’m in the right place. You both wait here while I 
look round near those rocks over there, and don’t 
leave here unless I call to you; then, when I call, 
come over; only keep your eyes fixed right on the 
glasses. I shall be looking at you through them. 
Mind you don’t take your eyes off the glasses, or I 
may get the place wrong, and count each step you 


Conjuring . 275 

take out loud, so that I can see how far you make it 
to be. Do you quite understand ? ” 

He was on the point of leaving, after catechising 
them again to make quite sure they understood, 
when he stopped. 

“ Peter, give me that stick of yours and with 
the younger lad’s climbing staff in hand he marched 
some distance along the ridge, placing the staff up- 
right in the snow. “ One of you step over that 
ground and see how much it is. 

“All right, now don’t forget to keep your eyes 
fixed on my glasses when I call to you. 

He reached the great gray granite mass, and 
seemed for some few minutes to be stooping, measur- 
ing something there. Presently he stood upright 
and signalled to them to approach; and they did, 
following implicitly his instructions. 

The very moment that they reached him he pointed 
to a crack in the rock close by. “Now keep your 
eyes on that,” he said, “so that you’ll know it 
another time if you see it. Right here ’s the 
corner, and you see me drive this stake in. Turn 
round now and look at Peter’s stick yonder; keep 
your eyes on that ; we must measure how far it is to 
that. Now march;” and presently they were back 
where they had started from. The leader breathed 
more freely now. 

It was Tuesday morning, just a week since they 
started, when Singleton and his companions, whom 


276 


The Golden Crocodile. 


we lost sight of disappearing into the forest, came 
once more in sight of the buildings in Glorietta, 
lying some miles below them as they emerged from 
the foothills forming the lower slopes of the upper 
mountains. Blistered, swollen faces, bloodshot eyes, 
lean, hungry looks, and many other signs told their 
tale of hardships suffered. But all that was past; 
inwardly they felt gay and light-hearted. 

The perils of the expedition had not been exag- 
gerated, but by using the utmost care and caution 
they had come through safely. 

It was Wednesday when they left Glorietta; and 
on Saturday, after toiling, climbing, slipping, sink- 
ing into drifts, sleeping two nights without fire in a 
hole in the snow, dazzled by the sun on the snow by 
day, and shrivelled by the frost at night, at last they 
had come in sight of the mass of granite rocks they 
knew so well, staked the claim once more, waiting 
only long enough to give vent to their feelings in 
a volley from the firearms they were carrying ; for at 
old Shelby's suggestion, although it added to their 
burdens, they had taken those along with them, 
from a vague suspicion in his mind after seeing that 
unknown man at the Record Office. 

But the luck in weather which had favored them 
in going up was destined not to be continued on 
the return. A warm wind had set in, which, while 
it reduced the cold, loosened also the snow from its 
grip upon the steeper slopes, making the danger 
from slides appalling. So much greater caution was 


Conjuring . 277 

required, that it had taken them nearly a whole day 
longer to get back. 

There was a look of glowing triumph on Harry 
Singleton’s face as they rode up to the Record Office 
on the horses which old Shelby had left instructions 
before starting to meet them. All his troubles were 
over. But, alas ! it was not destined to remain so 
long. A terrible surprise was just now in store for 
them. 

“ How are you, gentlemen ? ” was the greeting of 
the suave official who came forward as they entered, 
and there was a little meaning smile on his face, as 
if their coming here suggested humor to his mind, 
as he stood behind the desk waiting to hear what 
they wanted. 

Their mission was quickly explained. They had 
come to record afresh claim to the Old Silver Ledge 
mine. 

“Ah!” he replied, and, knowing them both very 
well, seemed inclined to indulge in a little pleas- 
antry, “I thought you people would be wanting that 
back. But you’re too late. That claim was taken 
up again yesterday by a man named Albert Stimson, 
of San Francisco. Here’s his affidavit, and of the 
men who went with him,” he added, producing a big 
book, and laying it on the counter before them. 
“You couldn’t have taken up the claim again, any- 
way, without going to the ground. Your rights ran 
out long ago. This man, Stimson, ’s fluffed us all 
out here, getting in ahead like this,” he laughed. 


The Golden Crocodile . 


278 

<( You’ve seen his long account in the paper this 
morning, of course. It ’s the talk of the town ; every 
one ’s predicting a new boom for Grizzly. That ore 
must be in some of the other claims as well as this 
one ; you ought to know, you folks. ” 

The official had rattled on. For the moment the 
two weather-beaten adventurers were too utterly at 
a loss to say anything. 

Singleton was the first to speak. It seemed as if 
the rush of mingled sensations which the reappear- 
ance of this man at such a moment brought with it 
had temporarily obscured the vastly more important 
material consideration in his mind. 

“ Albert Stimson!” he exclaimed, with intense 
surprise, and then suddenly it flashed upon him 
whose that strange, half covered-up face he saw upon 
the stairway which attracted his attention for a 
moment was. 

Yes, reader, Mr. Brooks, as you will doubtless in 
your wisdom have already guessed, is no one else 
but Albert Stimson, our former acquaintance of 
Grizzly Hollow. As you will remember, he knew 
of that ore in the Old Silver Ledge as well as 
Singleton; and the news of the Bullion Hill mine 
had reached him as quick as anybody. He had hur- 
ried out to Glorietta, and finding how the ownership 
of the Old Silver Ledge now stood, promptly made 
his plans accordingly. 

“Yes, that’s his name; you know him, do you?” 
rejoined the official. 


Conjuring . 


279 


But old Shelby had no sentiment associated with 
the name, and pouring out a string of practical ques- 
tions, quickly learned what date and hour Stimson 
had reached the claim, — four o’clock on Saturday 
afternoon, as the official informed him, — who went 
with him, and how he got there. 

“Why, we’ve just come straight from the claim 
ourselves ; been freezing to death for a week up in 
the mountains. We was on that ground at midday 
on Saturday, four hours before this man Stimson 
says he got there. He ’s telling lies. He and them 
was with him must ha’ seen our stake and our tracks 
in the snow,” angrily protested old Shelby, and 
looking at the official standing behind the desk with 
an expression on his face as if the man he was 
addressing must know all about it, and could set the 
question at rest in a moment by agreeing with what 
he, Shelby, had just said. 

But the man had scented by this time that there 
was a dispute in the air; and as it was no part of his 
duty to take sides in such matters, after listening 
sympathetically for a little while to what was being 
poured into his ears, he discovered that something 
important required his attention in another part of 
the office, merely explaining before going what the 
legal technicalities under the circumstances were, 
what they must do to formally assert what they 
claimed to be their rights. 

Shelby had learned the names of those who had 
been with the other party. “Wh} r , I know them 


280 


The Golden Crocodile. 


boys; they’re good, square boys; must be some 
mistake about this, Doctor. They never could ha’ 
bin on the right ground. We ’d best go right out 
and see them just as soon as we get something to 
eat.” 

But the visit during the day to the little farm up 
near the mouth of the Flaming Gorge afforded them 
no satisfaction. The old farmer’s sons were very 
frank, and described exactly what they had done, 
how far they had measured from the top of the ridge, 
and so on, and how they had set the stake against 
the west side of the big mass of gray granite. 

“ And do you actually mean to say you did n’t see 
our stake, and all our tracks in the snow all round 
there ? ” cried Singleton, and waited eagerly for the 
answer. A vast deal depended upon it; but the 
faces of both youths showed they were speaking the 
very truth when they said they had not seen a sign 
of any one being there. 

The visitors were amazed and disheartened at the 
answers they received. All their theory of Stimson 
having gone to the wrong spot was exploded. That 
landmark they were all going by extended for only 
about fifty feet on the west side ; the two stakes must 
be almost side by side. The thing was absolutely 
inexplicable. 

They went over, on the way back to Glorietta, 
every conceivable accident which might have obliter- 
ated their tracks. It was possible there might have 
come a whirlwind and smoothed them out; but such 


Conjuring . 


281 


things were unknown here, and there had been no 
wind at all that day. The thing was a profound 
mystery and most disheartening. They realized, 
too, how unfortunate it was for them that Stimson 
had got back first. It had enabled him to get legal 
possession, from which the burden fell on them of 
expelling him if they could. Strange, now, they 
had never for a moment thought of any one coming 
up by the Flaming Gorge. Stimson himself, they 
had learned at the farm, had gone back to San 
Francisco. 

It was far into the spring before the great case of 
Shelby and Singleton versus Stimson, for possession 
of the Silver Ledge claim, now known to be worth 
millions, could come on for trial, and the thing 
meanwhile had become the talk of the mining camps 
far and wide, people giving their views freely on the 
subject, and in Glorietta often volunteering them 
to Singleton himself, who was looking thin and 
worn from the strain, which the uncertainty of the 
situation, the weary waiting, cast upon him. It 
would be a relief, he felt, to have the matter decided 
one way or another. 

Not another speck of evidence had been adduced; 
and it was easy for him to gather, from the way 
people talked about it, and some of them to himself, 
too, that their minds were pretty well made up which 
way it would go. This was not a dispute involving 
fine legal technicalities. It was simply a question 
as to which of two sets of men could be believed, 


282 


The Golden Crocodile. 


and however bad Albert Stimson’s past record was, 
no one questioned for a moment the perfect honesty 
of his companions. What told against Singleton’s 
side most severely, what made his case — so people 
talked — look desperate, was that extra day in get- 
ting back. True, this was explained by the state of 
the weather, the warm wind having softened the 
snow ; but then the other party had not been delayed 
by this, which was also explained by pointing out 
that theirs was the shady side of the mountain, and 
the sun did not strike it at all in winter. The snow 
was just as hard underfoot for them in coming back 
as it was in going up. 

But people shook their heads at an argument like 
the last; too scientific altogether, they objected. 
They were much more ready to believe that a mis- 
take had been made in the number of days taken to 
get there. “ Must have been four days them’s buck- 
ing agin Stimson took getting up, not three; people 
don’t come slower walking downhill.” That was 
about the informal verdict of the public, delivered 
before the trial, though the point as to the number 
of days could easily have been settled by immedi- 
ately going again over the ground and examining the 
camping places; but even before either of the claim- 
ants had returned heavy snows had fallen, obliterat- 
ing every record of the route. 

The lawyers did not place much confidence in the 
whirlwind idea. The theory suggested by Singleton 
that a strong local mountain wind must have come 


Conjuring. 


283 

during the interval between his party leaving at 
noon, and the arrival on the ground of St im son’s at 
four o’clock, and tossing the dry snow about, obliter- 
ated their tracks. They did not expect that would 
help the case much, but being polite men they did 
not say so. They knew full well that a hard-headed 
jury would be more likely to believe that men who 
had a great prize at stake could make a mistake of 
a day in their own favor, than that nature should 
suddenly have become eccentric. 

But the comparative indifference of his lawyers 
to the subject did not deter Singleton from following 
up his theory, and making every effort to get the 
subject in such a shape that it might appear at least 
possible to other minds. The whole thing was a 
mystery, and he had but little expectation now of 
winning. This was only another instance of the 
miserable bad luck which had so persistently fol- 
lowed him here. He was thankful the case was 
coming on soon. He wanted it over, wanted to get 
away; but he was not going to give in without a 
struggle; there was the characteristic stubbornness 
in his English constitution, the determination to 
fight to the last. 

It was in pursuit of data to support his theory that 
he made, some weeks before the trial was to come 
off, a visit to the claim, — that ground which he had 
seen mentally in all his waking moments for these 
months past. This was the first visit since that 
memorable day that there was now all the mystery 


284 


The Golden Crocodile. 


in deciding about. The spring was already so far 
advanced that the trip, which he had last made at 
the peril of his life, was now little more than one of 
pleasure, as far as the physical obstacles were con- 
cerned. From the vicinity of the landmark — the 
great granite rocks — all traces of snow had disap- 
peared, and to one coming here now and looking at 
those two stakes staring at each other, not sixteen 
feet apart, set close to the wall of rock, — those little 
wooden pegs upon which the possession of a great 
fortune depended, — it did seem impossible to realize 
that the disappearance of a few footprints in the 
fleeting winter mantle leading to them, could be the 
determining factor in so large a matter. He had 
come to make some sketches of the neighboring 
peaks, towering thousands of feet still above this 
already lofty ridge, which he thought might help 
him to prove his theory. 

The work was over, the sketches all completed, 
and the party about setting out for the point where 
they had left their horses. He was folding up his 
sketch-book, some minutes more, and they would 
have started back. Just then something hit sharply 
up against his long mountain-boot and rolled into a 
little hollow in the ground close by; at the same 
time some one cried out an apology. 

It was from a man standing some dozen paces dis- 
tant, one who had come up out of curiosity; and just 
to while away the time was strolling round, stick in 
hand, hitting any loose objects — bits of rock — lying 
on the ground. 


Conjuring. 


285 


The man’s calling out attracted Singleton’s atten- 
tion; but for that, he would not have noticed any- 
thing. He glanced down. An empty Winchester 
shell had just rolled into a little hollow. Some- 
thing prompted him to pick it up, and as he fumbled 
with it in his fingers, a thought seemed to strike him. 
He got up from the rock that he was sitting on, went 
over where the other man had been, and picked up 
several more, six or seven, perhaps, and put them in 
his pocket carefully. 


CHAPTER XV. 

A SWEET GIRL’S BRIGHT THOUGHT. 

I N a quiet corner of the beautiful grounds of the 
Hotel Monte Vista at Monterey, the ancient 
capital of California, where the spreading branches 
of a fine old evergreen oak, whose gnarled and 
weather-beaten trunk is draped with ivy, shade her 
from the brilliant sun and afford a restful spot, with 
softened light, from which to look out upon the 
world of gorgeous flower beds scattered through the 
emerald lawns, as well as an escape from the rest- 
less crowd of visitors thronging the verandahs ; sits 
this afternoon in early summer, the girl of whom for 
three years we have lost sight, — the little girl with 
childish face and soft eyes, almost, but not quite 
blue; the little girl we call her, not, indeed, that 
she is a child, for she is more than twenty now, a 
year more nearly, but there is a something in her 
look, the expression of her face, which makes one 
think she is; though no one would ever take its 
owner for the girl so stirred to daring that time 
three years ago when her pet lay prostrate, torn by 
that savage beast. 


A Sweet Girl's Bright Thought . 


287 

Her eyes are turned dreamily in the direction 
where, through an opening in the trees, comes a 
peep of the bay and the great blue ocean out beyond. 
Is she watching the white sails of the fishing-boats 
gliding to and fro across the sparkling water, or is 
she listening to the echoing surf, born of the revolu- 
tion of the earth, as, ever and anon raising its green 
wall with feathered crest out of the quiet waters near 
the shore, it casts itself upon the beach with a sound 
as if of gladness, that its long, lonely journey’s end 
has come at last? 

But these things should bring gentle, peaceful 
thoughts; and instead her face wears a look as if her 
mind were dwelling on some trouble — sadness. 

The letter lying there, upon the seat beside her, 
that she just put down, that is the cause of it, — one 
from her lover telling her of the seeming hopeless- 
ness of winning his case about the claim, of his 
intention to leave for England directly it is over. 
That meant three, it might be four, years more of 
separation. To herself she was saying something 
sadly now. 

“How I wish I could do something to help him, 
poor fellow! It seems so hard to have to sit still 
here and see it taken from him. I ’m sure it ought 
to be his, whatever those other men say. Mr. Allen 
says that man Stimson always was a rogue and 
poor Maggie’s soft eyes filled with tears of sympathy 
for her lover in his struggles against bad luck. 

She had picked up the letter again, and was read- 


288 


The Golden Crocodile. 


ing it once more, when the sound of an approaching 
footstep reached her ear, and presently a good- 
looking young fellow in early manhood came in 
sight from behind a turn in the shrubbery path. 

“How do you do?” he called out, and hastening 
forward was cordially greeted by her, as she made 
room for him on the seat. “ I thought I might find 
you here. Miss Allen told me you had gone down 
to the beach; but that I might find you here if you 
weren’t there. How are you? It’s quite a long 
time since we last met.” 

“ Yes, I heard you were expected, but not so soon, 
I thought. When did you arrive? ” 

“Only a few hours ago; but a little party of us 
coming down in the train were arranging a riding 
party for to-morrow, and we want some ladies to 
join. Miss Allen says she ’ll come, and thought 
you would too. Why I came about it at once was, 
so that we can secure good horses for you. It ’s 
always best at any of these places to make arrange- 
ments as early as possible, you know.” 

“It’s very kind of you; I think I should like to 
go very much.” 

“ I was thinking as I came up, how long it is since 
I saw you last in San Francisco. It must be just 
about a year, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, it’s more than a year! I haven’t stayed 
with the Allens until this time, for quite a year and 
a half. I did n’t know they were coming here when 
I went to visit them from auntie’s, or I don’t think 


A Sweet Girl's Bright Thought . 


289 


I should have come at all. I don’t like this hotel 
life; I ’m not accustomed to it; there ’s no quiet, no 
rest; but I suppose you must like it, as you’re 
always travelling about so much.” 

“Well, sometimes I think I do, and then at other 
times I think differently; but I haven’t been in one 
now for four months, until I got to Sacramento on 
the way here, and I had to stay there all night; I ’ve 
been away out in the wilds.” 

“I thought you looked a little sunburnt.” 

“Oh, by the way, while I think of it,” he broke 
in suddenly, “tell me who that dark, foreign-looking 
man is I saw talking to Miss Allen. They seem to 
understand one another pretty well. I noticed she 
looked at him when I asked her if she ’d come in the 
morning. She introduced me; but I didn’t catch 
his name.” 

“That must be Count Maccaroni, the Italian 
gentleman she’s engaged to.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! I ’d no idea she was engaged ; that ’s 
something quite new; I hadn’t heard of that before. 
Then I ought to have asked him to come too, I sup- 
pose. Where does he come from ? Do you know ? ” 

“I don’t know where she met him, but I think it 
was when the Allens were travelling last year.” 

“I suppose he’s got the usual old tumble-down 
castle or chateau or villa or something of that kind,” 
he said, laughing, but there was a shade of bitter- 
ness in the laugh. 

Sydney Hinsdale, for that was the name of the 
19 


29 O 


The Golden Crocodile . 


man just now talking to Maggie Rankine, was one 
of those young fellows of polite education, and born 
in easy circumstances, for whom his country some- 
how seemed to offer no career of usefulness. With- 
out any inclination for a commercial life, and 
lacking the qualifications necessary to make a suc- 
cessful politician, in any other country the army 
would have been his goal, — high-spirited, patriotic, 
and with just the right dash to make a successful 
soldier. 

He had been everywhere, until he was sick of 
travelling, and glad to get back to his native land; 
in which, however, he seldom stayed long, when he 
did return. What his ultimate career might be, it 
would be hazardous to forecast, — a permanent resi- 
dence abroad, most probably; somewhere where 
people made a business of being idle. Not that he 
cared for idleness exactly, but he wanted the digni- 
fied idleness which comes with a military life. 
Having little to do himself, he naturally had opinions 
upon what everybody else was doing, and in certain 
moods became decidedly cynical. That remark he 
made just now, when Maggie Rankine told him to 
whom Miss Allen was engaged, to the effect that he 
supposed the man had some tumble-down castle or 
chateau or villa that he hailed from, was an outward 
expression of some thoughts and feelings which 
moved him inwardly, whenever he heard of any of 
his countrywomen marrying, or being about to marry 
titled foreigners ; and, had he been able to address 


A Sweet Girl's Bright Thought . 


291 


an audience on the subject, he would have made 
some observations rather more caustic than polite. 

“You, my dear country women,” he would have 
said, “at home cry, peace ! peace ! Our great nation, 
you say, is to show the world what true civilization 
is, and that wars and bloodshed are past; and while 
you are still crying thus at home, you are hunting 
about for some tuft, some title, itself founded upon 
bloodshed. Where is your boasted intellectual 
advancement ? Admit rather that the female animal 
instinct prevails within you; unconsciously, per- 
haps, but truly, nevertheless; since you seek out a 
protector from a fighting nation, while denying to 
men of your own the opportunity to show that they 
are not a mere pack of dollar-hunters, as you 
assert.” 

But he was better engaged at this moment. He 
had been rattling on, telling her amongst other 
things of his hunting trip last winter. 

“ What part of the mountains did you go to ? ” she 
asked, when at last he had paused for a little while. 

“Well, first I went to a little place called 
Glorietta; that is to say, we got our outfit there to 
go back into the mountains.” 

“ Glorietta ! ” she exclaimed, her whole face light- 
ing up in an instant at the mention of her old home; 
“were you really at Glorietta? ” 

“Yes, that was the name. Do you know the 
place, then ? ” 

“Dear old place,” she said fondly. “Why, I was 


292 


The Golden Crocodile. 


born near there, quite close to it. My father was 
the first man who ever settled there.” 

“Oh, indeed! how very interesting! I wish I’d 
known that before. I might have written to let you 
know how it was looking, you know.” 

“Thank you very much,” she said, casting down 
her eyes a little; “but I hear from there often; I 
don’t think it can be changed at all.” 

Sydney Hinsdale noticed the slight blush which 
had come into her face with the last answer. It was 
more than a year since he had seen her last; but at 
one time he used to meet her very often at the 
Allens’ house in San Francisco, where she fre- 
quently stayed before they went abroad, and where 
he himself was also then a pretty regular visitor; 
and they had always been very good friends after 
the first shyness on Maggie’s part — her manner 
with all strange men — had been got over. He had 
learned, somewhat to his surprise, after knowing her 
for some time, that she was engaged ; but all he had 
ever been able to find out about it was, that it was to a 
young Englishman, mining out in the mountains, — 
a somewhat indefinite description; but no one had 
ever volunteered to give him any more, for the fact 
was Maggie’s friends who told him, held views of 
their own on the subject of her engagement. They 
thought she was rather a fool to wait as she was 
doing, for a man whose fortune had disappeared into 
thin air. 

He remembered now the description of the man 


A Sweet Girl's Bright Thought . 


2 93 


she was engaged to; and the mention of her old 
home and about hearing from there often, which, 
taken together with the little display of embarrass- 
ment just now, furnished something of a clue to the 
whereabouts of the young Englishman, mining out 
in the mountains. 

Sydney Hinsdale’s curiosity was aroused. Idle 
men are naturally curious about such things; it 
helps to fill up their time. 

“ Yes,” he went on, thinking that by doing so he 
might learn something more presently. “I went 
back into the mountains from Glorietta with an old 
trapper who has a hunting cabin high up near the 
head of a place called the Flaming Gorge. He was 
honest enough to tell me before we started that it 
was too late in the season for that part of the 
country, which proved to be only too true; for after 
we ’d been there about three weeks we got snowed 
in so badly we had to wait a considerable time 
before we could get out again. But when at last 
we got away — and, by Jove! I shouldn’t like to go 
through that time again — he suggested, we should 
go further south, several hundred miles; and down 
there I had very good luck, the best I ’ve ever had. 
By the way,” he went on again suddenly, and before 
she had time to say anything, “ talking like this 
about hunting reminds me of something I ’ve got in 
my pocket. I picked it up in the hotel on the floor 
of one of the passages upstairs. I was trying while 
I was having my breakfast to make out what it ’s 


294 


The Golden Crocodile. 


intended for; looks rather like a sketch of some 
kind of ornament, a bracelet, perhaps, with Win- 
chester shells for links. Odd looking thing, rather, 
isn’t it? It must belong to some one staying in the 
place. I ’ll leave it in the office when I go inside.” 

She gave a start as he handed it to her to look at, 
and the blood rushed to her cheeks instantly. 

“ Oh, I am so glad that ’s found ! ” she exclaimed. 
“ I ’ve been looking for it everywhere; it belongs to 
me; thank you so very much,” and she hurriedly 
put it out of sight, while her confusion only added 
at once to Sydney Hinsdale’s curiosity. 

There was a little embarrassing pause for some 
moments, and then he looked up at her smiling. 

“May I ask any questions about that?” he said 
laughingly. 

She blushed again a little, but answered naYvely 
and with returning confidence, that it depended on 
what he wanted to ask. 

“Well, I won’t ask you any question at all, then,” 
he said, in a bantering way; “but I ’ll make a guess 
that it comes from Glorietta, and you ’ll have to tell 
me if I ’m right or wrong.” 

Her fingers were toying with the parasol lying 
between them, and she had dropped her eyes as if 
there were something in the pattern of the sunshade 
which greatly interested her just now. 

She did not answer for a moment. 

“Ye-s, it did; but how did you know that?” she 
asked, glancing shyly up at him, for no word on the 


A Sweet Girl's Bright Thought. 295 

subject of her engagement had ever passed between 
them. 

He laughed a hearty good-natured laugh. “Ah, 
how does a man know anything? I just guessed it. 
Now, do tell me something about it; I’m brimming 
over with foolish curiosity. If it’s a secret, you 
couldn’t find a safer person anywhere to confide in. 
You know you ought to take some one into your 
confidence sometimes, and why not me?” 

There was a pleasant, frank way about him which 
seemed to invite the confidence of even so shy a 
girl as little Maggie Rankine; and though under 
ordinary circumstances she would never have dreamed 
of talking about her intimate personal affairs, still 
just now she seemed to relax under the influence of 
his open manner. Perhaps, too, she felt under some 
obligation to him for the restoration of the missing 
article. She had never before spoken to him about 
the man she was engaged to, although they were 
very good friends, perhaps because she could have 
said so little; but now there was the all-important 
subject of the Old Silver Ledge claim, her lover’s 
expedition to it, the hardness of the luck in being 
so mysteriously forestalled. 

“ I ’m sure it ought to be his, too,” she ended, her 
voice trembling a little with the depth of feeling 
she had thrown into her narrative, for her loyal little 
heart had never doubted for a moment. 

Sydney Hinsdale sat listening, and the expression 
on his face plainly showed that the story interested 


296 


The Golden Crocodile . 


him very much, and that he felt every sympathy for 
his little companion. 

“It ’s the very hardest piece of luck I ever heard 
of,” he said emphatically and sympathetically as 
well ; “ and after facing such an expedition, too ! I 
know pretty well what it ’s like in those mountains. 
I had a dose of it myself, as I was telling you just 
now. Still,” he went on in a cheery manner, 
“there’s no telling; he may get it yet. Don’t be 
down-hearted about it ; the trial has to come 
off.” 

“Oh, everybody says he’ll lose. Mr. Allen him- 
self says so, too,” she said; and her voice was now 
so shaky and tears so nearly on the point of coming 
into her pretty eyes, her companion had to turn his 
face away just for the moment; while a sudden little 
pang of envy directed at the absent man shot through 
him. 

“Whereabouts did you say this mine the dispute 
is about was ? ” he asked presently, when she had 
recovered her composure again, as she quickly did. 

“I don’t know the place exactly, but it’s some- 
where in Grizzly Hollow.” 

“Grizzly Hollow — Grizzly Hollow,” he repeated 
it to himself several times, as if that name brought 
back something to his mind. 

“ Yes, that ’s the name of the camp,” she explained. 

“ Is n’t that somewhere near the Flaming Gorge? ” 
he asked presently. “I fancy I can remember my 
hunter telling me there was a camp of that name 


A Sweet Girls Bright Thought. 297 

across the high ridge above where we were snowed 
in, at his cabin.” 

“I should think it must be somewhere about 
there,” she replied. 

“By Jove! Just to think there was a whole gold 
mine close by there that I might have had myself, if 
I had only known of it. I feel almost as though I ’d 
been done out of it too,” he said with a smile. 

“I do most heartily sympathize with you, Miss 
Rankine,” he said, rising presently to go; “but 
never give up until the end. Something may happen 
yet; something may come out at the trial that 
nobody thought of before. I ’m very glad I hap- 
pened to find that sketch for you. You won’t 
change your mind about going out to-morrow morn- 
ing with us, will you ? ” and with a few more pleasant 
parting words he left her. 

Maggie watched his retreating figure till he dis- 
appeared, and then she turned once more to the 
letter from her lover, compared something in it with 
the sketch, so fortunately recovered. 

She sat on there for some time, quite a long time, 
nearly an hour perhaps. Suddenly a flushed, excited 
look came into her little face, as if something had 
startled her. 

“I wonder if possibly he could have,” she said 
aloud. Then quickly seizing her parasol, and with- 
out even waiting to follow the winding of the path- 
way, she darted across the smooth, well-kept lawn 
towards the building, wetting her feet in the spray 


298 


The Golden Crocodile . 


of the sprinkling jets as she passed, and hurrying 
through the crowd, somewhat startled by her abrupt 
manner, lounging out in the verandahs, she passed 
indoors and out of sight. 

Next day there was a riding party as arranged, 
but neither of those two who were sitting under the 
shady old live oak this afternoon were there. Maggie 
had changed her mind, and Sydney Hinsdale had 
yesterday driven back from the hotel to the railway 
by which he had only come that morning, greatly to 
his friends’ surprise. Maggie was the last one he 
had spoken to, as he drove off. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A STRANGE VISITOR. 

I N his room at the little Glorietta Hotel, where 
he had been staying since the trial began, Harry 
Singleton was quietly packing up this evening. 
After the closing of the court this afternoon, taking 
advantage of the long summer daylight, he had 
driven up to Medicine Creek for the few odds and 
ends which he would care to take back to England 
with him, — trophies of the chase, most of them, 
one or two deer and antelope heads, selected from a 
number which had fallen to his rifle at different 
times during his stay in the country; some skins of 
smaller animals as well ; pieces of rock showing little 
glittering grains of gold and silver, specimens he 
had gathered in his earlier days here, when such 
things were as yet a novelty to him, but long since 
laid aside; trinkets made by the Indians, perhaps of 
interest to those at home. 

There was a look in his face which seemed to tell 
a tale — a brief one, too — defeat. Although the 
actual end had not yet come, he felt there could not 
be a doubt. All that afternoon he had been sitting 
there in the crowded court-room, listening to the 


3 °° 


The Golden Crocodile . 


address of Stimson’s counsel to the jury, hearing 
the lawyer pulling his case to shreds, covertly jeer- 
ing at the statements which himself and his com- 
panions had made with so much earnestness. The 
lawyer was using that very line of argument which 
disinterested people had long ago told the young 
Englishman that Stimson’s counsel would. The 
meaning of the words could hardly be misunder- 
stood: “ Is it more conceivable,” those were some 
of them, “that these plaintiffs, all of whom have 
personal interests in this matter, should uncon- 
sciously — mark you, I do not suggest any conspiracy 
against my client — ” he said that, but the faces of 
the jury showed that they understood the innuendo; 
“ unconsciously,’* — he repeated it, — “make a mis- 
take of a day in the time of reaching this claim ? Or 
is it more possible of belief that a strange, mysteri- 
ous storm should have come round the corner of 
those rocks, and so conveniently brushed away the 
plaintiffs’ tracks?” Here the counsel paused for 
a few moments and gazed with half-shut eyes over 
into the faces of the jury with an expression which 
plainly said, “You and I know better than that, 
don’t we ? ” 

He went on again after the pause, “ Now I ask you, 
gentlemen of the jury, to especially bear in mind 
the character of my client’s witnesses, — honest, 
straightforward young men, — and they have nothing 
to gain or lose whichever way the case goes. They 
are the only persons in this case who are so situated, 


A Strange Visitor . 


3 QI 


and their testimony remains unshaken in spite of 
the furious assaults made upon it by my learned 
brother — that when they reached the claim with my 
client there was not a sign, not a scratch, I might 
almost say, in the snow around. ” 

These are merely a few specimens of the points | 
in an address which had lasted during much of the 
afternoon, and Singleton, sitting in the court-room, 
now crowded almost to suffocation, for the case had 
attracted an immense amount of interest, had eagerly 
watched the faces of the jury to detect, if possible, 
any signs which he might construe in his favor. At 
one time in the course of his own counsel’s speech, 
there had been visible some expressions which he 
thought might be so interpreted. That was when 
reference was made to the past history of Albert: 
Stimson; but when the same point came to be dealt 
with by Stimson ’s counsel, the lawyer handled the 
subject very adroitly. His client was q. man who 
had been misunderstood and misrepresented, the 
lawyer said; and instead of deserving the hatred of 
men, he was really entitled to their consideration. 
Was it not a fact due to his energy that public 
attention had been called to this discovery, and 
that the old, supposed-to-be almost exhausted camp 
had been revived, thereby bringing back prosperity 
to the community hereabouts. Their faces showed 
that this argument was not lost upon the men to 
whom it was addressed. 

At the opening of the case Singleton had been 


3°2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


still hopeful about his chances of success; but 
gradually, as it proceeded, his hopes had fallen, and 
this afternoon he felt that practically all was over. 
He fancied now that in the face of his old partner 
he could read the same thoughts too. 

When Stimson had returned to Glorietta to make 
his preparations for the trial, there had been one 
meeting between him and Singleton, and a strange, 
weird sensation had come over the young English- 
man as he saw for the first time again the man, a 
picture of whose body, lying there on the jutting 
crags of the vast canyon above, had for all that long 
time filled his mind. The meeting was purely a 
formal one. There was little said, and their hand- 
shake was about as meaningless as that of a pair of 
prize-fighters. A few remarks were dropped by 
Stimson about the chances of a mining camp bring- 
ing men into such conflicts as this, and so on. 
There was only the one meeting, and after that they 
kept out of each other’s way. 

Stimson, of course, had no knowledge of his 
young opponent’s feelings on the subject of the 
midnight raid that time upon himself, as he had 
never known who his assailants were. With him, 
the subject was buried in the past. 

As the spectators were filing out of the court 
room, there was ample opportunity for a casual 
observer to quickly learn what were the views of 
many of them. It was only necessary to listen to 
the offers to wager, often in considerable sums, 


A Strange Visitor. 


3°3 

upon the final result ; for in this community, betting, 
in one form or another, was one of the most accepted 
pastimes. Perhaps the expressions of opinion which 
reached his ears helped to suggest to Singleton that 
he might just as well make up his mind to the inevi- 
table, and quietly begin his preparations for de- 
parture. He wanted to get away as soon as possible 
after it was over. He had made the best fight 
against miserable hard luck he could. He would 
be glad now when to-morrow came and brought with 
it the end. 

He had a photograph in his hand as he paused for 
a few minutes in the somewhat hopeless task of per- 
suading several pairs of antlers to fit into his larger 
trunk, together with books and clothing. He was 
looking fondly at it before putting it away in a soft, 
safe corner, looking at the sweet, childish little 
face, wishing so much he could have gone over there 
to Monterey to see her. To-morrow, he said to 
himself, he would go all over the old place — her 
old home — again, so that he could write just before 
he left and tell her how it looked, — tell her, too, as 
he often had before, for she never tired of that, how 
her old dear friends the mountains were, and how 
the summer sun, as he came streaming over the great 
snow-peaks in the morning, was still the same as 
ever, still wore that same impatient, restless look 
upon his face, she read there in her childish fancy 
years ago; as, sitting out upon the old verandah steps 
in summer days, she watched, with soft, sympathetic 


3°4 


The Golden Crocodile. 


eyes, the white snow, slowly, surely yielding to 
his strength; creeping up the steep, dark mountain- 
side. 

A brief waking dream that he had fallen into, 
which might have lasted longer, but some one was 
rapping at the door. 

“ Come in.” 

It was a messenger from the office downstairs. A 
man who had come in by the midnight train from 
the south wanted to see Mr. Singleton. 

“ Wants to see me? Are you sure?” he asked, 
for it was nearly twelve o’clock, and indeed in 
another ten minutes he would probably have been 
in bed. 

There was no mistake about the name, the mes- 
senger said. 

“If you’re quite sure it’s me that he wants to 
see, tell him I’ll come down in a few minutes.” 

He hastily gathered up the things which lay scat- 
tered about the floor, and left them higgledy-piggledy 
for the present, only somewhere out of sight, in case 
he might want to bring this man, whoever he might 
be, up. He did not wish any one to see his prepara- 
tions for departure. 

He had just finished, and put on his hat to go, 
when there came another rap. 

“Oh! it’s you, Lander, is it?” he exclaimed as 
the door opened, and that gentleman’s face appeared. 
“Why on earth didn’t the boy tell me it was you! 
He knows you well enough, surely ! I was just 


A Strange Visitor. 


3°5 

coming down. Take this chair/’ and then he stood 
looking at his visitor as if waiting to hear what 
could have brought him up at such an unusual hour, 
glancing at the same time round the room a little 
nervously, to make sure that all signs of his prepa- 
ration for departure were out of sight. He would 
not have liked this man to know what his feelings 
were, for outwardly he still maintained an air of 
confidence to others. 

Singleton had seen very little lately of the man 
who had come at this strange hour. Perhaps because 
Mr. Lander had been very busy since the new boom, 
as predicted, had started up at Grizzly; since the 
discovery in the Old Silver Ledge; but there might 
have been another reason. Tom Lander had early 
in the day made up his mind that his young English 
friend could not win ; and he thought it the best 
move on his part, as a business man, to get on good 
terms with the man who, in his judgment, would 
— the man who presently would have in his control 
the very large sum which the Old Silver Ledge was 
known now to be worth. 

This is just to explain why on first entering the 
room there was something of an apologetic air about 
Tom Lander. He looked as if he felt doubtful of 
the reception he might meet with, — the outward 
expression of an inward suspicion that the man he 
had come to see must know that he had been treating 
his adversary with marked cordiality, and might 
have some feelings against him in consequence. 


20 


The Golden Crocodile. 


3° 6 

Tom Lander’s arrival at this unusual hour was 
due to something which had come to his knowledge 
only a few hours before, that might change the 
course of events. The same business foresight 
which had prompted him to seek out Albert Stimson, 
now prompted him to re-establish cordial relations 
with his opponent, and a very good way to do this 
would be to let himself — Lander — be the first bearer 
of good news. It is not intended to convey the 
insinuation that there was anything artful in this — 
not at all. Tom Lander was merely a man of busi- 
ness ; he went with the times. 

Lander did not think it necessary to explain just 
then, that he was not the person of whom the mes- 
senger had spoken, for he rightly guessed — in fact 
he knew — that it was the man he had seen waiting 
in the office downstairs as he came up himself. 

“I ’ve just come in by the train from the south,” 
he said, with an effort to be as impressive in his 
manner as possible; “and I heard something quite 
by chance on the cars which I believe may be of the 
utmost importance to your case against Stimson. I 
thought it would only be a friendly thing to let you 
know at once about it, so that you may not lose a 
moment in meeting this man. If what I heard him 
telling some of the other passengers, who were dis- 
cussing your case, is correct, he may be of the greatest 
assistance to you. Late as it is, I thought I ought 
to come up and tell you about it, as you might like 
to start after him at once. He must be somewhere 


A Strange Visitor. 30 7 

in the town now, and I expect you ’ve not an hour to 
lose.” 

The look upon Singleton’s face, as he listened to 
what his visitor had to tell, was, just at the first, 
one of comparative apathy, his mind had privately 
been so fully made up to accept the situation as 
against him. But, as the story proceeded, he soon 
began to realize the tremendous importance to him- 
self of what his visitor was saying, and his face 
plainly showed it. 

“That ’s all I came up about,” said Lander, rising 
to leave, when his story had come to an ending — - 
and it did not take long to tell — “I must be going 
now, as it ’s so late. I only dropped in here on the 
way up from the station, just to see you and tell you 
this. I hope I may have been of some service to 
you.” 

“By Jove, Lander, if this turns out in our favor, 
after all, we shall owe the whole thing to you. I 
really don’t know what to say to you just now. It 
was awfully good of you to come up like this.” 

“Never mind that! Don’t say a word about it! 
Don’t mention it at all ! ” he protested, with a depre- 
catory wave of the hand, as he stood up to go and 
fumbled with his coat-collar while listening to the 
other’s repeated thanks. “Well, good-night again; 
if you ’ll allow me to advise you, I should not go to 
bed to-night, until I ’d got track of that man and 
secured him. You ought to let Shelby know too. 
Good-bye ! 


The Golden Crocodile . 


3°8 

“Oh! by the way/' he said, coming back again 
after he had gone a few steps, and putting his 
head through the door, “you remember Professor 
Schleinitz, who was out here some years ago ? Well, 
I got a letter from him the other day. He ’s coming 
over again, will be here next week — coming to 
report for some of his friends on the new discoveries 
in this district. Say, Singleton, if you and Shelby 
get this thing after all, you must let me manage the 
financing through his friends for you; the profess- 
or ’s all right,” and Tom Lander’s head disappeared 
again. 

Singleton sat for a few minutes, then quickly 
putting on his hat once more, he started for the 
door, and his hand was almost on it, when, for the 
third time, there came a knock. 

It was the same messenger who had been up 
before. He had come this time to say that the man 
was still waiting downstairs, and had sent up word 
again. 

“What man do you mean?” he asked quickly. 
“Wasn’t it Mr. Lander who sent the message 
before?” 

“No, it was not Mr. Lander.” The messenger 
knew him very well. It was a stranger who had 
come in by the midnight train, and been sitting in 
the office ever since. 

Singleton was puzzled. He did not want to de- 
lay, late as it was, in going round to the most likely 
places in the town in search of the man of whom 


A Strange Visitor . 


3°9 


Lander had just been telling him; but a moment’s 
reflection suggested that perhaps he had better see 
this man, who was inquiring for him; it would not 
take long. He could not imagine, though, what 
any one could want to see him for at such an hour. 

“Ask him to come upstairs/’ he said, turning 
impatiently to the messenger; and there was not 
long to wait until, in response to his invitation to 
come in, an oldish-looking, weather-beaten man 
with long grizzly hair, dressed in a rough hunter’s 
costume, and with a cartridge belt round his waist, 
entered. If he was comparatively puzzled before, 
now he was so superlatively. 

“You’re Mr. Singleton?” asked the man, laconi- 
cally, after seating himself. 

Being satisfied on this point, the strange visitor 
went on very deliberately to explain what had 
brought him. The day before yesterday, a horse- 
man had arrived from the nearest telegraph-office, at 
his place, where he had some men sawing logs in the 
Cedar Mountains, two hundred miles south, bring- 
ing a message from Mr. Sydney Hinsdale, a gentle- 
man from New York who was out hunting last 
winter with him at his old camp back in the moun- 
tains here, at the head of the Flaming Gorge, asking 
him — the hunter, whose name Singleton now learned 
by looking at the telegram itself, which the visitor 
had produced from his pocket — to go at once, 
at whatever cost, which the sender would repay, 
to the nearest point on the railway and take the 


3 IQ 


The Golden Crocodile . 


train for Glorietta. Upon arrival there, to imme- 
diately, at whatever the hour, night or day, call 
upon Harry Singleton, who was well-known in the 
place, and tell him about the shots that Hinsdale 
and the hunter himself heard, when they were 
snowed up at the cabin in the Flaming Gorge 
last winter. The message also went on to say 
that the sender was starting himself for Glorietta, 
and expected to be there early on the Thursday 
morning. 

“ I guess that means he ought to be here on the 
train as gets in from that side at three this morning, 
as they tell me down at the station,” the man re- 
marked, when he had finished his narrative, adding 
besides, “I ’ll be mighty glad to see Mr. Hinsdale 
again. He’s a fine man, bought that little place 
down where I’m on right now, for me. He felt so 
good at gettin’ the game I put him on to in them 
mountains last winter. It wer’ seventy miles from 
my place to the railway; but I started off, right away 
when that come.” 

Singleton listened with astonishment. Not, in- 
deed, so much at what the man had to tell about 
being up there in the cabin at that time, for he 
quickly realized that this must be the very man Tom 
Lander overheard in conversation with other pas- 
sengers in the train interested in the mines, who 
were discussing the celebrated trial now on in 
Glorietta. All that was natural and easily under- 
stood. But what puzzled him most was, how could 


A Strange Visitor. 


3 1 1 

Sydney Hinsdale, the mover in the matter, the man 
to whom it appeared he himself was likely to be 
under a most extraordinary obligation, — how could 
he have known of this away over in Monterey? 

But at this moment, the most important thing was 
to go and see his lawyer. The case came on at ten 
o’clock; there was little time for preparation. Late 
hour as it was, he had better go at once. His 
partner was not coming back from Medicine Creek 
till morning. There was no means of consulting 
him. 

But before going he had better get the man to 
tell the story once again, so that he could be quite 
sure, and be able to describe the situation clearly to 
his lawyer. The whole thing seemed so strange. 
His mind had been in such a turmoil ever since 
Lander’s coming that sometimes he felt almost 
inclined to doubt if it were anything but a dream. 
But there was the old hunter, sitting in the chair 
all right, fallen asleep too. Perhaps the other men 
he talked with in the train had been friendly in the 
western way, — the pocket-flask, — that had loosed 
his tongue, and now he was feeling the re-action. 

“I see you’re tired out; I’ll tell them to show 
you a room, so that you can get to bed ; but I wish 
you’d explain once more before you go about hear- 
ing the shots we fired. I want to be certain about 
the date and the hour. You ’re certain about the 
date, aren’t you?” 

The man had braced himself up again. “I don’t 


3 1 2 


The Golden Crocodile . 


remember what the day of the week was exactly, but 
there can’t be no mistake about it; because ’twas 
three days, I know that myself, after the big storm 
come what snowed us up, and we was wondering if 
when we heard them, it could be any other party 
snowed up; and Mr. Hinsdale, I know, wrote it in 
his book, what he kept of each day. There ’s plenty 
of the folks down here in Glorietta must call to 
mind what day that storm was. Must be you know 
it yourself. Well, ’twas three days after that.” 

“Stop a minute!” cried his listener, and then 
Singleton went through a little calculation. “The 
storm was on the day — that is, the night before the 
day — on which we started in the evening. That 
was Tuesday. The third day from that, of course, 
was Friday. That was perfectly satisfactory, indis- 
putable, splendid.” 

“ Now as to the hour ? ” 

“Well, there isn’t no doubt about that, for we 
was having our dinner at the time. It ud be about 
half-past twelve. Oh, I couldn’t tell to just a 
minnit; might be a half hour more, might be just 
that much less, but ’twas somewhere about that 
time, anyway.” 

“And Stimson doesn’t pretend he got there until 
four o’clock!” Singleton cried excitedly. 

“ How ’s that ? ” asked the man. 

“ Oh, I was only speaking to myself ! ” he ex- 
plained. 

“There ’s one thing more I want to ask. How do 


A Strange Visitor . 313 

you account for being able to hear those shots all 
that distance? ” 

“Why, ’t ain’t no great distance, neither,” the 
man protested; “but then when the snow’s lying 
deep and the air’s light, you can jest hear every- 
thing down in that place what’s going on on the 
ridges up above. Them big, high, steep faces of 
rock all around my old cabin seems to catch the 
sound some ways. That ’s why I first come to locate 
in there in the old days when game was plenty in 
those parts. I could jest sit in my cabin down in 
there, and hear the game a-hollerin’ all round on 
them ridges, when, if I went up above, I couldn’t 
hear nothin’. The Indians was in that country 
before the white men come. They know’d that 
place, hunted there reg’lar.” 

Singleton was now excited to the utmost pitch. 
His enthusiasm was almost beyond restraint, and 
presently, when his visitor had left to be shown a 
room for the night, he had to relieve the fulness of 
his feelings by dancing round his own room for a 
little while, throwing his hat up into the air. 

The future was simply glorious now. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


JUST IN TIME. 

TT was nearly half-past three; only two hours since 
A the last scene closed — early, early summer 
morning. The first faint streaks of dawn were com- 
ing up from behind the mountains, though it was 
dark in Glorietta still. It was the cool morning 
hour when here in summer heats men . sleep the 
soundest. 

From a narrow lane running by the side of the old 
rambling place, styled — as all such places in the far 
West are — “hotel,” a man, crouching against a 
wooden fence as if to shield himself from observa- 
tion, is watching the occupants of a conveyance 
which has just drawn up in front, bringing, it was 
plain to see — for no other persons would be coming 
here at such an hour — some travellers arrived by 
the train ; which, as the ceasing of the tolling engine 
bell made known, had stopped a little while before, 
though now gone puffing on again. 

Some smothered words broke from the watcher’s 
lips as a good-looking, well-dressed young fellow 
alighted with the others, and the light from inside, 


Just in Time . 


3*5 


as a sleepy porter only just awakened opened up 
the door, shone on the travellers; some reflection 
of the light from a house across the street, thrown 
back upon the lane and upon his face as well, show- 
ing an evil look of reckless devilry. 

“That must be him. They’re all in now, all 
three of them,” he muttered. And then he shrank 
back from the leaning forward attitude that in his 
eagerness he had assumed, the better to conceal 
himself from observation while the empty convey- 
ance passed not a dozen paces off along the street. 

Soon he saw the light that had been streaming 
from the open front door disappear, telling him 
they had gone upstairs and to their rooms. Slowly, 
stealthily, he crept all round the building, looking 
up to see where lights were burning, and going 
once more round found they were all in darkness 
now. Sneaking back on tiptoe half-way down the 
narrow lane, he looked up at the windows, counting 
them. 

“ The sixth, that ’s his. I saw him and old Shelby 
sitting by the open window yesterday. The others 
will be tired. They’ll be sleeping sound enough 
for me.” 

He glanced up once again as if to make quite 
sure. Then going to a spot immediately below, and 
drawing something that he had been carrying, from 
beneath his coat, set rapidly to work doing some- 
thing — boring holes it looked like — in the thin wall 
of the flimsy old wooden building. 


The Golden Crocodile. 


3 l6 

A violent storm of wind was carrying clouds of 
summer dust along the street in front. The boards 
in the fences rattled with the violence of the blasts, 
which, striking the house upon this side, came 
whirling down the narrow lane. The violence seemed 
to please him. It was a precious ally for the 
fiendish work he had in hand. 

Now he was pouring something from a bottle 
through the holes. A roll of thunder and a blinding 
flash of lightning close at hand seemed to urge him 
on. The wooden building, shrunk and dried up 
from the weeks of parching summer drought, was 
just like tinder now. He knew that well, and fairly 
lighted once, come rain, come water by the bucket- 
ful, with such a wind the flames would only scoff at 
water. 

The gleam of a striking match came for a moment ; 
another, and then one more. Now he was stooping 
down peering through the holes. Suddenly a strong 
flame burst, jets coming even through the holes 
themselves. Ha! the oil had caught. 

The tall, majestic, snow-crowned peaks, rising 
into the sky, still, clear and starlit, with the dawn- 
ing coming from behind them, unreached as yet by 
the coming storm, looking from those lofty heights 
that night down on the hideous, lurid glare piercing 
upwards through the murky haze of dust driving 
before the storm-wind on the plain stretched at their 
feet, might well have hung their heads to contem- 


yust in Time . 317 

plate such devilish work, urged on by lust inspired 
by grains sown all amidst their charms. 

The ashes of three human beings mingled with 
the fine, soft, white ashes of the old building in 
little whirls and eddies in the softened breeze next 
day upon the Glorietta street. Not a vestige of the 
old place stood. The very ashes had been driven 
far and wide before the wind. No one ever knew 
what Albert Stimson’s share in those deaths was. 
Though there were men who thought they could 
have guessed; there was no proof. But had he 
known himself when he struck that match what 
he did afterwards, he would have been saved a 
hideous crime, for the men he was seeking to destroy 
had left the building. Had he not been so much 
absorbed in his devilry, boring holes for the storm- 
wind to fan the flames inside without showing them, 
he would have seen two men, Singleton and his 
lawyer, hurriedly enter the hotel and leave it ten 
minutes later with two other men; and when the 
wild, warning clanging of the fire -bell rose above the 
storm, he might have seen those same four, sitting 
smoking in the best room in the lawyer’s house. 

Mr. Holt, the lawyer, might possibly have had 
some premonition which caused him to suggest the 
party moving to his house, — as he tells the story 
now he says he had ; but quite as likely it was the 
fifty thousand dollars that he stood to make from his 


The Golden Crocodile. 


3 l8 

clients, if successful, which had much to do with 
wanting to keep those two new witnesses in sight. 
However, that point does not matter now, as the 
story is just ended, and he won the case, although 
of course some further fight was made. 

That bright thought of the little Daughter of the 
Desert with the childlike face had saved her lover. 


THE END. 















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